No Sleep Till Brooklyn
by The-KLF
Summary: "They're both having trouble sleeping, but when one is awake the other is dreaming." The Caskett Connection started before they even properly met, seeing each other in their dreams. He is the ruggedly handsome Derrick Storm to her Clara Strike, and she the mystery woman he's falling in love with who he may never meet outside the dreamworld. Awesome cover by dtrekker! #Ficathon2013
1. Chapter 1

It had been a long day; a long, long week, really. Unlocking her front door, Kate Beckett tried to put her work day behind her. As an NYPD homicide detective, she had seen more than her fair share of atrocities, domestic and otherwise. But the case she and her team had closed today, aided by a specialist FBI team that was headed by her boyfriend, Will Sorensen, had been particularly difficult. No one liked kidnapping cases, no one even pretended to like them, but this one had ended in the worst way possible. They hadn't solved it quickly enough to save the child, and it was eating at her from the inside out.

Kate had declined Will's offer to come round to her apartment with her and spend the night to comfort her. Awful as she knew it sounded, she could hardly think of anything worse. She needed the time alone to get the case squared away in her own mind, to stop the memories of it from overwhelming her.

Any other evening, she would have been heading straight to her claw-foot bathtub for a scalding hot bubble bath with candles, a large glass of red wine, and a decent mystery novel. But tonight she was too exhausted to even manage the first step. She toed off her heels, dumped her purse, and headed straight for her bedroom, swiftly changing into shorts and a baggy t-shirt. She looked across the books on the shelf and picked one with a dark cover and starkly contrasting block letters. She took the dust cover off and left it on the dresser before she slipped under the sheets and snuggled down to begin reading one of her favourite stories. One that had a happy ending with justice served, one she could get lost in, one that would replace her own reality for a while. She opened the cover and her eyes glanced across the title: _Storm Approaching_.

Kate skipped straight to the first chapter and began to read but her eyelids began to droop within the first few pages. The book slipped from her hand onto the bed and she fell asleep.

* * *

An elderly lady glides up towards the door, a tiny dog trotting along behind her. "Good evening, Mrs Dale!" He gives her a wide smile; she looks smart and chic for her age, like she's been out for cocktails with some Parisian friends, and returned before sunset. His white gloved hand pulls the door open for her and he tips the brim of his hat respectfully.

"Good evening, JT," she replies amiably as she scoops up her dog into her arms and carries on through the door to the elevator. He lets the door swing shut, tugs down his jacket sleeves tidily, and clasps his hands in front of him as he continues to watch the street. He knows the façade of the building opposite like the back of his hand now, the black awning over the door with the brass-coloured poles, the red bricks, the grey stone, and the black railings around the balconies. The regulars are just as familiar, not only for his building, but also next door, opposite, and the people who walk past every day on their way to the Park.

He smiles, in a quiet contentment that is rudely interrupted by the squeal of tires. A black SUV with its driver's side windows rolled down turns in from Fifth Avenue, narrowly missing a pedestrian crossing the road. The woman shouts an obscenity as she gets to the other side of the street, but it's lost in the awful din of gunshots. JT Richards turns his head towards Central Park for the final time as his body comes to rest on the sidewalk and he takes his last breath.

Later, across town, day has given way to night. The apartment is dark, except for the light given off by the time on the microwave clock, and the street ambience that filters up to the ninth floor, seeping under the curtains. Among the shadows, a pile of blankets rises and falls softly on top of a bed, occasionally emitting a quiet snore. A large foot and half of a well-sculpted calf are exposed to the night air, and at the opposite end of the bed a thick mop of brown, bed-rumpled hair pokes out.

The blanket creature snorts and rolls over in its sleep, taking the blankets with it, revealing its true form: that of a ruggedly handsome man. A very naked, ruggedly handsome man. His knee is raised up across the blankets he is now snuggling up to, accentuating his muscled legs and back. The protective arm that is slung across the sheets appears to be the size of a tree trunk.

The peace of the dark, quiet apartment is shattered by the shrill ringing of the cellphone perched on the bedside table. The charging cable prevents it from vibrating itself onto the floor but its insistent light and noise rouse the man slightly and he reaches his arm out to grasp the device. Then the world tugs itself sideways.

* * *

As the reader fell asleep, the writer roused himself with a particularly loud snore. He raced his finger over the track pad of his laptop to wake it from its screensaver, the phrase 'You should be writing!' taunting him as ever, and looked at the time. At almost four in the morning, he knew the best thing to do would be to get up from his desk and head to bed. But he was awake and his brain was already running in overdrive. He stared at the blank word processing document on his laptop for a while before acknowledging that there was nothing likely to go onto it tonight and shutting the lid.

He stood and stretched, the sound of his spine creaking and his knees clicking loudly in his office made him wince and he sighed. The great Richard Castle, finally getting old, reduced to wandering around his loft in the middle of the night to get the ideas flowing. He walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, blinking a few times to adjust to the light pouring out of it. Sometimes this was all he needed to inspire him, the simple act of looking at the food and drink within to spark a memory from his 'research'. But not tonight. He reached for the carton of milk and shut the fridge quietly before hunting for a tall glass. After pouring his milk, he put the carton back in the fridge and fished two cookies out of the jar, noting that there was one left for his daughter, Alexis, to take to school in the morning. He took his snack over to one of the large windows of the living room and sat down to watch the world go by on the street below.


	2. Chapter 2

One of the advantages of sporadic insomnia, as far as Rick Castle was concerned, was being able to watch the sunrise over Manhattan. He saw it as a privilege to be able to share these moments with other New Yorkers who were also awake and on their way to work. Not that he was really sharing it, since he was inside, tucked away from the biting wind that stole the leaves from the trees in the parks and from the garden on the top of the roof. He smiled and chuckled at the expense of a business man on the sidewalk, chasing a lone sheet of paper down the street, focusing on the ground instead of looking up and taking in the view.

Castle raised his eyes from the sidewalk and went back to watching the sunrise, the pink and grey clouds moving quickly across the blue sky. Maybe it would rain later. He made a mental note to make sure Alexis had an umbrella with her, then thought of the business man and changed his mind. He stood and went into his office to find his wallet, took out some cash and made his way to the kitchen to start making pancake batter. He'd slip the money into her purse later so she could catch a cab home from school if necessary.

He opened the fridge and pulled the milk out again for the second time in as many hours, along with the carton of eggs. Flour from the cupboard and a large jug and whisk completed the requirements, and he set to work as he heard the shower start up in the bathroom upstairs. As he mixed the ingredients he wondered how much longer his daughter would let him make breakfast for her. She was already the more adult of the two of them, and was tiptoeing carefully ever closer to the precipice of independence. And honestly? It scared the crap out of him. He just wanted her to be his little girl forever, to always be the one she ran to in the middle of thunderstorm-filled nights, or for a princess plaster over a scraped knee. That wouldn't last forever. But he knew there were still at least three and a half years until she could really claim to be independent. Once that driver's licence dropped through the mailbox on her sixteenth birthday he was doomed.

"Morning, Dad," she called from halfway down the stairs, bringing him out of his rapidly spiralling thoughts. He looked up and smiled in wonderment, his hand stopped mid-whisk, and she frowned at him. "What?"

He shrugged, somehow managing to keep the smile on his face, "Nothing." Alexis eyed him curiously and he felt obliged to continue. "You just look so grown-up today." The smile slipped a little, which she didn't fail to notice, and she almost ran around the kitchen island to hug him. "Woah, easy... you ok?"

A tiny nod and a muffled, "Love you, Dad," was her only reply. He placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head and squeezed her shoulders.

"Do you want blueberries in your pancakes?"

Alexis shook her head, "No, raspberries. And dark chocolate chips." Rick nodded appraisingly.

"An excellent decision, young padawan." He gave her a gentle shove towards the fridge and the two of them made breakfast together, side by side as he hoped would continue for many years to come.

* * *

The phone was ringing. That's what was happening. That guy with the great ass was reaching for it, he could talk to dispatch, get the address for her. She'd just have a few more minutes of sleep. Just a few.

The phone was ringing. Again. Guess he didn't pick it up for her after all. She reached her arm out and slapped her hand around on the bedside table until she found it. Flipping it open, she attempted to open her eyes, but the image of that guy rolling over was burned into the backs of her eyelids and it was too tempting to just hang onto it a little longer. She groaned into the phone, "Beckett."

She scribbled down the address and stumbled out of bed, somehow stubbing her toe on the way to the bathroom. Cursing the world, and especially her subconscious for the hot but ultimately not helpful distraction, she got through the shower, into clothes, and through the door in twenty minutes.

* * *

As soon as Alexis was out the door, with promises to catch a cab if it was raining on the way home, Rick let out the yawn he'd been holding in for at least half an hour. He padded through the loft and was about to bypass his laptop to head straight for the bed that had begun to call to him when he saw his phone lighting up. He picked it up off the desk and answered it, sitting down heavily in his desk chair.

"Hi Gina," he said. He didn't really want to speak to his wife but she was away on business, sort of his business, so he put on a brave face. "How's London?"

"Hi Ricky, it's great here, the sun is shining and the merger talks are going well." Her voice sounded tinny from across the pond. "How are you, how's Alexis?"

He wished she wouldn't try so hard. She wasn't his daughter's mother, he barely thought of her as wife sometimes, still more his publisher than the woman he shared his bed with. He shook his head to clear his thoughts before he replied, "Great, we're great. She's gone to school and I am settling in for some writing."

Gina sounded pleased, or distracted at least, "Good, good, that's great. Listen, I need to go, the meeting's starting up again, I'll call you tomorrow when I leave for the airport."

He nodded, though she couldn't see him, "Sure, great. Bye Gina."

He was already moving the phone away from his ear when he heard her reply, "Love you, Rick, bye." He pressed the red button to hang up and threw his phone onto the desk as he pushed himself up and shuffled into his bedroom. He shedded his robe as he crawled under the blankets, pulling a couple of the extra pillows to his chest to cuddle up to as he finally succumbed to sleep.

* * *

It's a beautiful morning when he wakes, he feels refreshed and happy, almost lighter than air as he goes about his morning routine. No one else is in the loft, so he sings loudly in the shower, surprising himself that he can reach such high tenor notes. He's grinning as he waltzes into the kitchen and straight back out of it through the front door. Why cook for himself and make all that washing up when someone else could cook and wash up for him, all while he indulges in some people watching?

He fairly tap-danced down the pavement, but resisted twirling around a street light like Gene Kelly, though he didn't doubt he could've pulled it off. He hadn't felt this good in ages. Probably in years. He wished he could bottle the feeling up and keep it for rainy days, or when Meredith visits.

The diner he heads into is only a few minutes from the loft, and one he frequents with Alexis on a semi-regular basis. The staff are friendly and unobtrusive, and he likes the 1950s theme they've chosen for the décor. He sits down in a corner booth, facing the rest of the seating, a mixture of more booths and stools at the counter, all covered in faded red and white vinyl. An elderly waitress comes over to him with a pot of coffee.

"What'll it be, dear?" This is how Viola works, pretending not to know the regulars and treating them just the same as the tourists, and the tourists just the same as the regulars. She gives him a kind smile and tips the coffee pot to start pouring into the cup already set in front of him, after all, she knows he'll have coffee, but he does have a tendency to change his order every so often. Last time, he had asked for an omelette with hot piri piri sauce at eight in the morning. Viola's smile grows with the memory.

Rick looks up from the menu and returns her smile with one of his own. "Nothing outrageous today, just the chef's special French toast."

"Right you are, dear," she nods and heads back behind the counter to take his order to the kitchen. He leans back in the booth and looks around the diner for the first time since he sat down, taking in the other customers. It's not too busy today, but there's enough to keep him occupied until his brunch arrives. He puts cream and sugar into his coffee and stirs it mechanically as he picks his first victim.

No, victim is the wrong word, he thinks to himself. Subject. That's much better. His first subject is in the corner booth at the opposite end of the diner from him. A silver-haired black man, probably around the age of seventy-six, who has his glasses on the end of his nose and a light brown cardigan on, despite the warmth in the air. His head is bowed over the table, so Rick sits up straighter to try to see what the man is reading. It turns out to be the newspaper. He has half a glass of orange juice to his left that he sips occasionally, and it makes Rick's taste buds prickle. He catches Viola's eye and she comes over.

"More coffee?"

"Please, and a glass of orange juice, thanks." She nods and pours him another cup before she disappears, returning only a couple of minutes later with both the juice and his order.

"Here you are, dear, chef's special French toast, and a glass of orange juice. Let me know if you want anything else."

"Thanks!" Rick starts to tuck into the food on his plate, wondering if he's ever eaten French toast like it. He's not sure he could even replicate it, creamy and crunchy all at once, and are those raisins? He'd be willing to give it a try. Perhaps Alexis would be willing to help with the experimental stage. It could be her next science project!

He's pulled from his line of thought by the tinkling of the bell above the door. He lifts his head on autopilot to look at the person walking in, his fork halfway to his mouth. What he sees intrigues him. The woman looks tired, a bone-deep weariness in her movements. She's wearing a slate grey trouser suit with a pale blue button-down shirt, and as she moves towards the counter to sit at one of the stools he sees a pair of three-inch heels peeking out from below the hem of her pants. He remembers that he's still holding a forkful of food, and unceremoniously stuffs it into his mouth without taking his eyes off the woman at the bar.

She doesn't notice that he's staring, which is for the best really, seeing as how he doesn't think he can tear his eyes away from her. Her dark brown hair is cut in a short bob, and she keeps nervously tucking the edges behind her ears as she sips on her cup of coffee. As he watches her, she turns her head to reply to Viola who is at the till near his end of the diner. He almost stops chewing as her face lights up in a smile, stunned by the almost mischievous twinkle in her hazel eyes. Her voice lilts across the room, a soothing balm to his stuttering heart, and he's grabbed by the need to go over there and talk to her himself.

As he starts to shuffle across the booth, she drains her cup and stands from the stool, leaving her cash on the counter and waving to Viola. She turns away from him and walks straight out of the diner before he can even stand up. He shifts back across the booth and stares at the door, his jaw slack until he realises she is walking past his window. He watches her go by with reverential awe, the sunlight shining on her face capturing his imagination, and then leans back on the vinyl with a sigh and a shake of his head. Suddenly he doesn't feel like people watching anymore, not if the people aren't her. He finishes his brunch slowly, almost without enjoying it. Viola comes over when he's done and gives him a sly raise of her eyebrow.

"What's her name, Viola?"

"That would be telling, dear."

"Viola, please." He's not above pleading with the woman, "I need to know, please." She just shakes her head and takes the dirty plate, glass, and cup away. He sighs, his whole body drooping with disappointment.

He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of his bedroom. A dream. It was just a dream. He yawned and swung his legs out of the bed, bracing his arms on the mattress.

The beautiful woman probably didn't even exist.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time Esposito and Ryan returned from canvassing the area around the crime scene, Beckett had set up the murder board and got through two and a half cups of coffee. She was swirling the last half of the third cup around the mug, lost in contemplation, when her fellow detectives greeted her. They seemed subdued, much quieter than usual.

"How was the canvass, guys?" she asked.

Esposito responded first, with a glare. Beckett noticed the limp lettuce leaf on his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Ryan began to explain, "It was fine, though not exactly fruitful..." Esposito turned his glare to his partner and his nostrils flared. "Uh, that is to say, we had to turn over quite a few... leaves..." Beckett pressed her lips together in an attempt to hold in the laugh that threatened to spill out of her.

She cleared her throat, "So, you don't think any of the neighbours' information will blossom into a lead...?"

"Shut up, Beckett!" At Esposito's outburst, she couldn't contain her mirth any longer. He just continued to glare.

"Come on, what happened?"

"The vic's next door neighbour, a Mrs Margo Vallens," Ryan told her, "didn't take too kindly to Detective Esposito's question, and proceeded to pour the salad she was going to have for lunch on him."

"That woman is crazy! All I did was ask if she'd heard anything during the night, and then she dumped lettuce all over me!"

"And tomatoes."

"Yeah, and tomatoes!"

Beckett shook her head with a smile. "Espo, go take a shower. Ryan, let's get the vic's financials and see if we can figure out who the next of kin is, if there is any."

And so the bullpen returned to its usual fizz of activity, the rest of the afternoon passing by with little incident. Beckett was glad to send her team home for the evening when they'd reached a suitable break, as she was beginning to hear the call of the bubble bath. Her phone buzzed as she got into the elevator, with a message from Will to say he'd caught a case upstate and would be away for a few days. Beckett replied with little regret, as she was a solitary sort of person, and she and Will had been working together for the last week or so anyway. As she went about her evening, and turned off her bedside light after continuing to read her book, she didn't feel like she missed him in the slightest.

* * *

The phone stops buzzing just as the hand attached to the tree trunk arm lifts it from the bedside table. The groan that emanates from the body wrapped around the pile of blankets is almost certainly accompanied with a roll of his eyes. The phone starts to ring again, however, so he takes the call.

"Storm." His voice sounds awake but laced with the sandpaper roughness of sleep.

"Nice of you to pick up, Storm," replies the voice on the other end of the line.

He smiles, "For you, Strike, anything. You need me for something? Phone sex, maybe?"

"Don't get your hopes up," she retorts before getting down to business. "We've had a call go up for an unresponsive agent. You're the nearest operative. I'm sending the address to you now, but the NYPD are already on their way so you won't have free reign."

He gets up while she's speaking to him, stretching out his lean body before grabbing clean clothes. "Sure, sure," he replies absently, wandering around the apartment with nothing but the moonlight to clothe him. After a beat, he continues, "Hey, Clara?"

He can almost hear her eye roll across the phone line, "What?"

"You, me, dinner, tomorrow evening," he definitely hears her sigh.

"When are you going to stop asking me to dinner, Derrick?"

"When you say yes, of course." He takes the phone away from his ear and hangs up to get dressed.

About half an hour later, on the corner of East Sixty-Second Street and Fifth Avenue, Derrick Storm is observing New York's finest at work behind the fluttering yellow tape. The crime scene unit are in full flow, little plastic baggies and bright yellow cones everywhere. There are two detectives, both male, one Hispanic, the other he guesses to be of Western European, most likely Irish, descent, who are observing, making notes, and asking questions of the medical examiner, a curvy, petite black woman with a dazzling smile in spite of the time of day. She is busying herself with the body on the pavement, illuminated partly by the sunrise but mostly by street lamp still.

It's difficult to be inconspicuous at such an early hour of the morning, he can't pass himself off as a businessman on his way to work since he's not hurrying past, he has no dog to use as an excuse, so he slips into the building opposite by the Fifth Avenue entrance and makes his entrance on the other side. The crime scene tape is across most of the road, so he can easily stand at the edge of the pavement and watch – or rather, gawk – from a few metres away as many other New Yorkers with nothing better to do of a morning would do.

It occurs to Storm that it's been quite a few hours since the shooting. Why is the forensic unit still here? More to the point, why is the body still here? He frowns, considering the options before him. He wants to get a closer look but there's a uniformed officer slowly walking the line in his direction, and he'll probably be asked to move along in the next twenty seconds. Luckily, he only needs half of that to formulate his plan.

"Morning, Officer," Storm nods to the tall, slim, black man, who nods in return. He takes that as an invitation to continue speaking, "Say, I think I might know that guy, what happened?"

A deep, sonorous tone resonated from the police officer, "Sir, I'm not permitted to divulge that information at this time."

"Sure, sure," Storm glances down from the officer's face to get his name. "Maybe I can speak to a detective about it, Officer Scott?" The officer merely nods once and turns towards the crime scene. Storm waits patiently behind him, peering around to see which of the detectives will come over. Seems to be the Hispanic, stocky guy, nearly all muscle, and carries himself like he's not been out of the army longer than he was in.

"What's up, L.T.?" the detective asks.

"This man says he knows the victim," Officer Scott says, clearly but quietly.

The detective looks at Storm, who chances a nervous smile and a nod. Not that he's actually nervous, but appearances are everything. "Okay, L.T., thanks." The officer nods and continues his walk of the perimeter tape as if nothing had occurred, leaving Storm with the burly detective. "I'm Detective Esposito. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions, Mister...?"

"Hold. Dustin Hold. And no, detective, I don't mind, please go ahead," Storm replies obsequiously. Esposito takes out his notebook and jots down the name before he continues. "Mr Hold, could you tell me your relationship to the victim please?"

"Detective, you've forgotten to tell me who exactly it is," Storm points out. Esposito gives him an icy look. "If it's the doorman, then I didn't really have that much of a relationship with him. He's the doorman for the building opposite mine, seemed a nice guy, always had a smile for people." He shrugs non-committally to smooth over the act.

Esposito is still eyeing him warily, "Thank you for your time, Mr Hold." He gives him a nod and is on his way back to Ryan.

"Oh, Detective?" Esposito turns. "What was the poor bastard's name?"

"He was JT Richards, Mr Hold," he replies, after a few seconds spent deciding how much to tell the stranger from across the street. Storm nods solemnly in reply and starts to walk towards the Park. He keeps his eye on the crime scene as he makes a final pass, but is all too aware of being watched by the pair of detectives, both very well trained at noticing when something isn't one hundred percent true.

Storm walks into Central Park, sauntering casually at first until he's well out of sight and then jogging briskly into a wooded area away from paths likely to be populated by morning joggers. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses a few buttons before bringing it to his ear.

"What do you have, Storm?" He rattles off the name and features of the dead man, along with some salient details from his observation of the crime scene, and the detectives in charge of it, to his handler.

"Fresh rubber on the pavement in a sweep from Fifth Avenue, vehicle must have been moving at speed, probably between thirty and forty miles per hour. Large amount of blood loss, so it was either a few really well-aimed shots, or a long time in between the shooting and the emergency services arriving."

Strike hummed quietly, and he knows she's waiting for the system to refresh before she says anything, so he waits patiently for her, just like he always does. And always will, his mind supplies.

"So, JT Richards is actually James Toulson. Working undercover as part of a joint taskforce to get information about one of the residents in that building, one Desmond Lapaglia."

Storm huffs a laugh, "Oh, that old guy? What's he up to now?"

"Drugs," Strike continues, "Seems he's pretty near the top of a drug smuggling ring."

"How near?" Storm demands.

"Not near enough, at a guess. And before you ask, the rest of the file's above my security clearance."

"Shit."

A car alarm begins to sound and he twists his head in its direction.

Suddenly, Beckett awoke, her phone alarm ringing shrilly. She reached to turn it off and sat up on the edge of her bed, rubbing her eyes. She glanced down at her phone again but her eye was caught by the photo on the back of the book on her bedside table. She cocked her head to the side, the details of her dream flooding through from her subconscious. That was him, that was, "Derrick Storm..." she whispered. But she blinked and picked the book up, shaking her head.

The photo wasn't of the character, but the author, and it would seem that's who was portraying him in her dream. She laughed to herself as she stepped into the bathroom, thinking it couldn't possibly get any weirder. She hoped she would find out what was going to happen at the end of her dream version of _Storm Approaching_.


	4. Chapter 4

The sounds of the front door unlocking, opening, closing, and locking again permeate his world, but not enough to break his concentration. The sudden flash of inspiration had come while he had been looking down at the street from the window, without really watching what was passing there, while letting his mind wander to the dream he'd had earlier that day after crashing out at nine in the morning. He had rushed to his laptop to get it onto the page, and, fortuitously, he was still working on it when she arrived home.

He heard, without listening, the muted sigh of a woman pleased to be home, pleased to finally be able to take off her heels and stretch her toes, pleased to find some quietness after hours and hours of travelling. He heard the quiet slap of her bare feet across the hardwood floor towards the slightly ajar door of his office, and he knew who it was without needing to look up. He knew she liked to peek through the bookshelves and watch him work. Somehow she realised that she could email him about deadlines all she wanted, but actually standing over his shoulder while he typed was never going to make him write quicker. So, it had become their thing: she observed through the partition, and he pretended to not notice.

Rick reached a suitable stopping place and hit the save button with a contented smile. He glanced up to her usual watching spot with a knowing smirk and laughed when she gasped in surprise at being caught. He didn't think he'd be as glad to see her as he was, but he realised he'd missed his wife. He'd missed their staccato arrhythmia that seemed to work out alright in the end, like one of them was beating their drum in three while the other beat in two, not always aligned but for brief moments of clarity when they were.

He rose from his desk and went out to greet her. He slipped his hands around her waist and pressed his cheek to her ear, breathing in perfume, aeroplane, and the light perspiration of international travelling. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she laughed when he lifted her clean off the floor for a second before gently letting her stand again. "Hey Rick," she whispered.

He answered by tightening his hold on her before replying, "I missed you, Gina." She shifted slightly in his arms to look at his face, see the twinkle in his eyes and the lopsided smile that was both sincere and goofy at the same time. She couldn't help but smile back.

"I missed you too, Ricky. But we closed the deal, so it was worth the trip." He nodded, hoping that he'd be spared the boring details about the merger between Black Pawn and whatever publishing house in London it had just swallowed up. "What were you up to just now when I got in?"

"Writing," she rolled her eyes, and he knew it was mostly at herself for asking a stupid question.

"Writing what?"

"Derrick is in the middle of a tense meeting with a gang of female Greek spies."

"...Greek? Not Russian or Chinese or something?"

"Yep, Greek. It'll make sense when you read the first chapters." She shook her head with a smile, conceding defeat, and he asked her what time it was.

"About three twenty I think, why?" He let go of her immediately, like she was burning him.

"Ooh! I promised Alexis I'd meet her from school, she wants to go to the zoo for some artistic inspiration," he called to her as he ran into their bedroom and grabbed socks and shoes from the closet. "And now I'm going to be late." He pecked Gina on the lips as he zoomed past her, stopping at the door to grab his keys and wallet. "We'll be back for dinner, don't worry about cooking anything, I put some beef and vegetables and stuff in the slow cooker this morning, bye!" The last words were cut off by the front door closing, and Gina found herself alone in the loft.

"Good afternoon, darling wife, how was your trip? Are you feeling okay?" Gina sighed, her shoulders sagging. "I guess I'll get unpacked then," she said to no one in particular and took her suitcase through to the laundry room.

* * *

He had been writing. Actually writing. She could hardly believe her eyes, it had been weeks, perhaps a couple of months, and he had barely stopped writing except to eat and sleep. Sometimes he even stopped long enough to get in the shower, when she reminded him. It had been so long since she'd seen her dad like this, actually inspired and working, and _enjoying_ writing.

As she thought about it though, it hadn't happened since before he married Gina, and now Alexis had had the longest amount of time since that wedding without having to listen to arguments and yelling matches across the loft. All because her dad had finally, _finally_, been writing again. She had hoped it could continue until _Storm Fall_ was complete, but it would seem that he'd hit a wall.

She could tell he was having trouble with something in Derrick Storm's world because for the last three days he kept asking her to sit in his office to keep him company whenever she wasn't at school. He said he was lonely, and kept on making puppy-dog eyes at her. Sometimes he even got out that pouty face that was so hard to say no to. So she would inevitably acquiesce and bring bowls of ice cream along with her homework so they could sit companionably on his comfy sofa, reading, chatting, and trying not to drop sprinkles everywhere, until Gina would come home from the Black Pawn offices. Then Rick would spring up and sit behind his desk at his laptop as if he'd been there all day.

Alexis would hide her smile every time, but she waited until the fourth afternoon to broach the delicate issue of writer's block. She brought the ice cream as usual but no books. Her dad noticed.

"Aren't you going to do some studying with me this afternoon?"

She smirked, "No, Dad. You don't let me concentrate."

"Well, I could try harder!" He was about to pout, but she gave him a playful punch to the arm which startled him out of it.

"Spill. What's going on? What's happened to Derrick?"

Rick's face fell and he gazed into his bowl of melting ice cream as if it held all the answers to the universe's problems. He breathed a quiet, but nonetheless dramatic, sigh, and contemplated his words carefully before he spoke. "His time has come to an end, Alexis," he continued staring at his ice cream. "I've decided to kill him off."

He chanced a look at his daughter and took in the sight of her jaw, slack with surprise around a motionless spoon containing a mouthful of strawberry ice cream. He smiled at what he saw before the grin turned into a grimace and he looked away again. He heard her put the spoon back in the bowl and shift a little on the leather sofa.

"How?" She asked in a quiet whisper, her position now mirroring his, elbows on knees, the pair of them hunched over their bowls, holding onto the ceramic for dear life. It was then he realised that Derrick Storm was more than just one of his characters to Alexis. Storm was an ever-present companion in her life; even before she was old enough to be his first editor, even before the character had been published, Castle would regale her with bedtime stories about the spy's adventures. And here he was, calmly telling her that her imagination's comrade was going to die.

"Not sure. That's what the problem's been the last few days." He turned to take her bowl from her and set them onto the floor, "I'm thinking it has to be something pretty final. Something he won't be able to survive." She nodded slightly, finally coming out of her reverie to look up at him. "I'm sorry, pumpkin."

She smiled a little at his apology and moved to give him a hug. "Why, Dad? Why now?" She pulled back to gauge his reaction.

He shrugged with an undecided sigh, "I'm just not enjoying writing him anymore. It's become boring."

She was quiet for a moment before she replied, "Your readers don't think so." He smiled.

"That's sweet of you to say so, Alexis, but you know there's only so many times he can escape the jaws of death."

* * *

He's wandering again. No breakfast this time; just a coffee in his hand from the café across the street from his loft, his jacket over his arm, and a smile on his face. It's the perfect weather for taking a stroll, the lightest of breezes lifts his hair away from his forehead every so often and the sun is bright but not overpowering because of a thin blanket of the cirrocumulus clouds fashioning neatly regimented fluffy balls of cotton wool way up in the atmosphere.

He thought he was walking aimlessly, but it seems he does have a purpose after all. His smile widens when he reaches the pier where the bright orange Staten Island ferry is just docking and about to unload its passengers. He chucks his empty coffee cup in a trash can before moving to wait in line to walk down to the boat, the name of which, he notes, is the Andrew J. Barberi. As he mixes with the other New Yorkers and tourists, he tries to remember if he's been on this particular vessel before, but isn't sure until he is right up next to it, where he nods in recognition.

After he embarks, he heads purposefully for the stairs to the upper observation deck, even though he knows that everyone else will be doing that too. And on such a beautiful day he doesn't blame them. He gets a good spot on the rail though, and leans against it with his hip, watching the movement of people on the gangway and observation deck below until the boat pushes off. He digs his phone out of his pocket to check for messages, but there aren't any, so he sends a text to his daughter to say where he's going. He hopes she doesn't mind that he's gone on a little adventure without her, but he was only following his feet.

Putting his phone away, and his jacket on, he looks up towards the Manhattan skyline as the boat glides away from it. The breeze picks up as they get out into the middle of the Hudson, and it ruffles his hair in nearly every direction. Rick leans down and rests his forearms against the rail just in time for a little boy with chocolate-brown curls, a yellow t-shirt and khaki shorts to scoot past his legs and clutch at the wire below the rail to look at the view. He smiles down at him, and he looks up with a grin that he thinks could only be surpassed by Alexis at about the same age, maybe five or six years old.

He's surprised when the boy suddenly squeaks, "Hi!" and it startles him to reply back in kind. The kid doesn't say anything else though, just turns his face away from him again to watch the wake across the river, so he copies him for a moment. Surreptitiously he begins to look around for a parent or someone who looks like they're anxiously missing him but no one seems to match his expectations. Perhaps he came from inside the cabin. He decides to give him a few minutes, until they're past Lady Liberty, before trying to find his responsible, or not so responsible, adult.

Castle absently looks at the people on the deck below as they float past the tip of Governors Island, and that's when he sees her. The woman from the diner, the woman Viola wouldn't tell him anything about, who he wasn't quick enough to follow. He's about to push away from the rail to get to her when he hears a strained voice calling out questioningly, and the little boy he's been sheltering at the rail unknowingly elbows him in the thigh as he guiltily turns to meet the stern face of the man he assumes is the boy's father. Rick turns too, and gives the man a reassuring smile, which he's pleased to see returned while the man places a protective hand on the boy's shoulder to guide him back into the cabin.

With the boy safely back inside, his attention returns to the lower deck. Relief courses through him when he sees that she is still there, still leaning her straight arms on the lower rail and her head turned to the left as Liberty Island passes by the starboard bow. He takes in her profile, the dark hair cut into a severe bob, the suit and power heels. It occurs to him that she's wearing exactly the same clothes as the last time he saw her in the diner. A coincidence maybe? He shakes his head, he doesn't believe in coincidences. This is a message from the universe, he's certain of it.

But why?

He's about to make a move to go downstairs, introduce himself to her, strike up a conversation, hopefully something that doesn't include the phrase, "So, do you come here often?" He's about to shift from his vantage point, really he is. But he can't. Whether it's mentally or physically he's not sure, but he feels like he's rooted to the metal deck as soon as he even thinks about attempting to move. He looks down at his feet, and sure enough they're clamped to the deck. Then he realises his arms are chained to the rail.

He starts to get agitated, looks around nervously, but suddenly there's no one else out there on the deck with him. Looking down, there's no one else on the lower deck either. Except her, the mysterious woman he's suddenly desperate to reach but... can't. She twists her body around to look behind her, then up to where he's restrained and he sees that she's in just the same position as he is: stuck. Their gazes meet for the first time, and he watches her with barely concealed longing. He thinks the expression is mirrored on her face, like she wants to get to him just as badly as he wants to get to her.

Suddenly the boat lets out a loud blast to signal their imminent arrival at Staten Island. It should sound like an air horn, but it's more like fireworks, or a car backfiring, or... or a gunshot. He urgently starts trying to get out from the cuffs and chains and clamps at the same instant he sees her eyes go wide in panic. He cries out in alarm when she slowly looks down at the dark red blooming across her white dress shirt and then back up to him. She's miraculously free of her restraints and lifting her hands up to touch the blood, as if to test that it's really hers. He shouts again, loudly enough to startle her to look up at him, and their eyes lock once more before the whole world shifts.

Rick surged up from his bed with a silent scream and scrambled to catch himself before his body poured out onto the rug. He was drenched in sweat, his hands shaking as he roughly moved them through his hair. He was rattled to his very core, and he knew there was no way he could sleep any more tonight. He moved from the bedroom into his office and sat to do the only thing he could possibly conceive of in that very moment.

He wrote.


	5. Chapter 5

It's not unusual for her to call him once or twice a week, but he knew something was up when he got a third call within five days. Jim Beckett might not have always been the best of fathers, but he knew his daughter, and this was not normal behaviour between the two of them. He caught her attention before she hung up.

"Katie," he paused and she hummed a questioning reply. "Do you want to meet me for a late lunch or a cup of coffee some place? About three o'clock?" He waited, giving her a moment to weigh up the decision.

"Sure, okay. How about that place on Eighth Avenue, a block up from Madison Square Gardens?"

"Sounds good. I'll treat you."

She laughed, "Thanks Dad. See you later."

"Bye Katie."

* * *

A little past three o'clock, a short, plump, greying lady bustled over to them as Kate sat down in the booth opposite her father. "What'll it be?" she enquired, without ceremony. Jim asked for a coffee and a ham sandwich, while Kate went for a water and chicken salad. The waitress disappeared instantly, leaving the two of them alone in their thoughts.

"Are you okay, Dad?" Jim glanced up at his daughter, the soft, concerned tone of her voice surprising him slightly.

"Yeah, I'm fine, as ever." He cleared his throat, "I just thought it'd be nice to actually chat to your face for once." Kate huffed a laugh and smiled indulgently, "And I think there's something on your mind that you want to get off your chest." She ducked her chin down to concentrate on the napkin she was twisting in her fingers and Jim waited patiently for her, deciding to let her tell this story without being led by his questioning.

She didn't want to scare him, but she didn't really know where to start. "Well... work's okay, nothing too tricky lately, which Espo thinks is great. Oh! He got pelted with vegetables by an old lady the other day, you should've seen his face when he and Ryan got back to the bullpen." They shared a smile before she continued, "And the super still hasn't fixed the leaking faucet in my kitchen, but I can't exactly remind him 'cause he's never around when I go to work or come home again." She shrugged, and her eyes darted around the table nervously. The waitress came back and scooted plates and drinks onto the table before she disappeared again.

"And what's really on your mind, Katie?" Jim fixed his daughter with the kind of penetrating stare that had been known to cause ill-prepared witnesses to crumble on the stand.

She took a deep breath and sighed, shaking her head slowly. "It's about Will." He tilted his head to indicate he was listening. "He... he's been offered a job. In Boston." Jim's eyebrows flicked up slightly before his face returned to its usual stoic neutrality. "He asked me... no, ask isn't strong enough. He made it pretty clear that he expected me to go with him."

His coffee cup was halfway to his mouth when his arm stopped and he looked up at Kate. She glanced at him and saw the incredulous shock that she had felt when Will had told her about the job offer. "Yeah, that's pretty much what I thought when he said it too." She started to eat her salad, while Jim chewed thoughtfully on his sandwich.

After a while, Jim spoke up, "Was there anything else he said?"

"Not as such. Something about being serious about us and where we're headed, and he thought moving to Boston together would be a good foundation to start on."

"And you don't agree." Kate looked up in surprise before going back to staring a hole into her own plate.

"I guess not," she whispered. "I don't see how moving away from all our friends and family would be a good basis for a relationship." Jim hummed in response. "I don't want to leave my job, I've not been a detective all that long and it wouldn't reflect well on my file to suddenly move after only a couple of years." Kate shook her head. "I thought he didn't want to get serious, Dad. It's like he wants a house in the suburbs, and a white picket fence, and two kids, and a dog, and I'm just not ready for that, especially not somewhere that's not New York!" She dropped her fork with a loud clatter and ended in a frustrated growl, leaning her elbow on the table and resting her forehead in her palm. Jim reached across the table to gently hold her wrist and pull her hand away from her face. She looked up at him and made a disgruntled face.

"Seems to me you've already made your mind up, Katie," he stated, with a small smile, and she nodded.

"Seems I have."

"I take it you asked for time to think about it."

"Yeah, he told me a couple of days ago, we're going to have dinner tonight to talk about it." Jim nodded once.

"Let me know how it goes."

"I will, Dad." Kate picked up her fork and carried on eating her lunch. "Tell me about your new case." Jim leaned in and began the story of his firm's latest case, glad to give his daughter's mind a few minutes peace from the hubbub of the rest of her life.

* * *

Kate locked her apartment and leaned her forehead against the cool wood of her front door with a deep breath and a heavy sigh. Dinner with Will had gone exactly as she'd thought it would, which is to say, it was short. They barely made it past the starters before he'd initiated the conversation she'd been putting off for as long as possible, and it wasn't pretty. Or quiet.

He'd left her sitting at the table to sheepishly face the pitying looks of the other diners alone. She'd sat back and drunk the rest of her glass of wine and tried to ignore them. The sympathetic serving staff had definitely earned the tip she'd left with the bill after he stormed out.

The word choice in that thought made her laugh, and she immediately knew what she was going to do with the rest of her evening. She lifted her head away from the door to walk into the kitchen, pulling her phone from her pocket to dial her dad. They had a short conversation so she could update him on her recently re-acquired singledom and reassure him that she was fine. She took her coat and shoes off and they chatted until her bath was ready.

With her apartment silent again, Kate smiled and picked _Storm Approaching_ up from her bedside table. She had nearly finished it, only a couple of chapters left, and she made short work of those after she had slipped into the bath. She put the book down on the bathroom shelf and sank down into the water, up to her chin. She closed her eyes and considered the dreams she'd been having about the same story.

Though, as she thought about the book and the dreams, she realised the stories weren't the same really. After all, she'd dreamt about Esposito and Ryan and they certainly were not in the book. And if they were going to pop up in her dream, why hadn't she made an appearance herself? Kate shrugged, deciding to get out of the rapidly cooling bath and into bed, and found herself hoping to see more of her ruggedly handsome Derrick Storm later.

* * *

She strides over to the printer on the other side of the squad room, her four-inch heels and high-waisted pants elongating her already sinfully long legs, and waits for it to spit out the sheet of paper. She reads the page over on her way back to her desk before she puts it into an envelope about an inch thick, full of documents. She leans over her chair to lock her computer and grab her jacket, slipping it on over her purple top and shoulder holster. She unlocks her desk drawer and removes her gun, checking it over and nestling it into the black leather holster. She locks the drawer up, tucking her short hair behind her ear as she begins to walk out of the office.

"Hey, Strike?" She glances up towards the sound of her boss' sonorous voice and stops by the door of his office, adjacent to the large squad room.

"Yes, sir?" she asks, a curious furrow in her brow.

"Give Storm my regards, will you?" She nods once and smiles as she begins to walk away. "And tell him he still owes me a poker re-match so I can win my money back off him."

Without turning around, she grins and replies, "Yes, sir."

The elevator ride back to the surface is painfully slow, or at least it feels that way with the smarmy agent from a couple of floors below hers in there with her, but she smiles and converses politely while thinking up ways to shut him up in five seconds or fewer until they reach the ground floor. She mentally berates herself for wishing ill on the poor man but she's just excited to be heading back out to the field again. Excited because it's way more fun than the desk work, but nervous too because it means working with Storm in close proximity again. And after the last time they did that she's still not sure how she got out of there with all of her clothes on and her dignity entirely intact.

The guy could charm the pants off a Navy SEAL if he really wanted to, and with Clara Strike? Boy, did he want to, and he didn't bother to hide the fact around her either. One day, probably in the very near future, she thinks to herself, she'll say yes to his almost-constant dinner date requests, and when she does she wants to say it in person just so she can see the look on his face. She gets into her car, a non-descript sedan that looked like every other non-descript sedan in the parking lot, and points it towards the city.

Meanwhile, Derrick Storm listens to the syncopated anti-rhythms of the swish and thunk of golf balls being hit into the Hudson River. He never thought he'd ever join the golfing set but here he is, dressed all in black, looking like Gary Player, but completely without the steady swing. He's trying, really he is, but it's just so much more difficult than it looks. He's hit three balls so far, and none of them have even made it into the water, all heading straight into the netting at the front of his fourth floor bay.

He steps up to the ball and tries to settle before taking another hacking stroke, as if he's going to hit an ice hockey puck into the top right corner of the goal, but a quiet, attention-seeking cough makes him look up. Storm's eyebrows tilt questioningly as his gaze sweeps over the interrupting woman, taking in the bob of auburn hair that frames her smiling round face, and the curve of her hips towards her short legs. The owner of the cleared throat speaks in an unexpectedly quirky British accent, "Sir? Would you like some tips?" Storm stands away from the ball and leans nonchalantly on the seven iron, his other hand in a lazy fist on his hip.

"Sure," he replies, with a quick smile that makes his eyes crinkle. The woman, dressed in the Chelsea Piers staff uniform of royal blue polo shirt, chino pants and white golf shoes, steps up towards the square mat and stretches her hand towards him to introduce herself.

"I'm Karen, I'm one of the teaching pro's here," Storm shakes her hand, deciding to stick to his cover name from before, introducing himself as Dustin. Karen moves to stand in front of Storm and begins to show him how to grip the golf club properly, how to address the ball, and the basics of a good swing. She gives him a wide smile when his first attempt at actually hitting the ball after her ten minute introduction results in the ball heading up to the sky and back down towards the water about a hundred and fifty yards away in a beautifully straight, looping arc. "Well, I'm impressed. You're a quick learner, Dustin." He flashes a flirty grin at her and speaks as he steps up to have another go.

"Have you been working here for long?" He swings, but tops the ball, and it bounces once before quietly plopping off the edge and heading sixty-odd feet straight down to the pier. "Hmph, first one must've been beginner's luck."

She huffs a laugh before replying, "About a year now. It's certainly been an experience. The city, the weather, the people... everything is totally different from at home. There's no skyscrapers in Cambridge."

Storm nods amiably. "Do you get regulars here at the range? Any fun ones, or weird ones?" The flirty grin makes another appearance.

"Oh yeah, lots of people come here once a week, but there are some who come every day. Actually, one of them is over there now, at the end of the row behind me. We've nicknamed him 'The Italian Stallion'." Storm chuckles questioningly. "Oh, we're pretty sure he's in the Mafia somewhere, because we have to keep the bays nearest that one clear until he leaves. He gets quite upset if he thinks anyone can overhear any of the conversations he has with the people who come and go while he's practising."

Storm chances a look over Karen's shoulder, and sure enough, there is a man of Italian stock, roughly mid-thirties in age talking to a couple of cronies while he belts golf balls into the river. While he's looking, the man takes a break from swinging and turns to gesticulate at the other men, giving Storm a good view of his face. He turns his attention back to Karen, "His swing's almost as bad as mine."

"Well, I think yours is much better than it was, actually. But you're right, he won't let us give him any pointers." She shrugs, "People who don't put in the work don't improve, and I've found that's not just on the golf range." Storm smiles in reply and returns to his bucket of balls. "I'll leave you to it, Dustin, alright? If you want anything, just come over to the desk."

"Sure, thanks for everything, Karen."

Storm watches her walk away and goes back to surreptitiously watching the man at the end of the range while he slowly works his way through the remaining balls. He manages to make them last until the man leaves, his bodyguard carrying his clubs awkwardly for him as if he couldn't do it himself. Storm gets his phone out of his pocket and pretends to be texting so he can get photos as the guy walks past. As soon as the photos are on the phone, they begin to upload to his secure Cloud folder, and Clara Strike's phone chimes with a notification from its position on the passenger seat of her car as she parks up. She picks the phone up to look at the messages and gets the images on their way to the tech team so they can begin facial recognition.

Another notification comes in, this time a text, and she drags the top bar down to tap the shortcut. She reads the text from Storm, confirming the upload in a shorthand code they're both familiar with, and is in the middle of typing a reply when another text comes in.

_You, me, dinner, in an hour. Hope you have your little black dress in the trunk, you're going to need it._

Strike rolls her eyes and laughs as she gets out of the car and grabs a duffel bag from the back seat, murmuring to herself, "Not a little black dress, Storm... better."

* * *

Beckett woke and stretched, and grinned, because of course her subconscious had cast her in the role of Clara Strike. Who else could she possibly be? She jumped out of bed and headed straight to the shower, starting her day determined to keep that grin on her face.


	6. Chapter 6

He's escaped the oppressive heat of the New York summer by ducking into the Guggenheim on Fifth Avenue. He doesn't go here often, not often enough anyway, and he wonders if he should try to make more time to do this kind of thing. Wandering around the the cool, quiet halls, it feels soothing and calm, simple and unobtrusive. The kind of activity that does a man's soul good.

Having said that, he could definitely make his own exact copy of that painting. And that one next to it. And the one over there too. He shakes his head with a quiet chuckle, not wanting to disturb anyone in the gallery. There's quite a crowd in here, it's hot out after all, but even with all the people the room is still cool.

Castle stops in front of a painting he's never seen before. This is not something he could make his own copy of. It's detailed and complicated and haunting. The more he looks at it, the more things he notices about it, the way the woman's purple and red clothes billow around her porcelain white skin, the planes falling from the sky towards her on the bridge, the ginkgo leaves swirling around her as she walks past the baby whose head is on fire, the lighthouse and the black sun. He stands there for a long time just looking, contemplating. So long that he doesn't notice the crowds of people slowly thinning out and dispersing.

When he returns to awareness of the world around him rather than the world within the picture, the only other person in the enormous room is right at the other end of of it from him. He looks down the hall to make a study of the person from afar, another subject, he thinks to himself. She's standing with almost the exact same posture as he is, right hand clasping left elbow and left hand stroking her chin, the classic thinking pose. He's really far away from her, about three hundred yards at least, so there's not a lot else to go on, but her hair... her hair seems familiar.

She walks slowly in his direction along the other wall, looking at the exhibits, and he makes no attempt to either hide the fact that he's watching or to approach her. He waits, patiently, and in that moment he feels like he would wait forever for this woman if that was what she required of him. He knows that she knows he's there, it's become harder for her to pretend she's not looking over at him occasionally. Sometimes she'll openly stare at him while he drinks her in, other times she tries to hide her face with her short hair and will only glance through the corner of her eye.

Eventually... finally... she quietly moves to stand by his side. She focuses her attention completely on the painting, much in the same way that he did when he first saw it. He watches her take in the details without pointing anything out, allowing her to draw her own conclusions and ideas from the porcelain-skinned woman wrapped in the billowing fabric. She briefly looks at him with narrow eyes and he flinches in surprise before diverting his attention back to the painting. She follows suit but after ten seconds he goes back to staring at her.

The woman by his side is as haunting as the woman in the picture. Matching porcelain skin, luscious red lips, long billowing robes... wait, what? Where did those appear from? And that hat? He blinks a few times, but the new clothes don't change back to the dreary business suit she'd been wearing before. She holds the brim of the hat to keep it from flying away in the wind that's suddenly sprung up and with a final meeting of their eyes she steps into the painting, beginning to walk along the bridge, past the baby with the burning hair.

Castle feels the wind in his face as he watches her go, mouth agape and unsure of what exactly is going on. She turns to look over her shoulder and tweaks her eyebrow up at him. He hears a voice that he thinks might be her asking him, "You coming?" but her lips don't move and he can only stand there dumbly as she turns with a distinct air of disappointment and continues to traverse the bridge.

* * *

He woke to the incredibly soothing feeling of someone stroking his hair, and the dim light of curtains drawn in the middle of the day. Letting out a contented hum, he turned his head from its almost face-down position on the pillow and opened his bleary eyes to discover the owner of the tender fingers that ran across his scalp and neck. "Hi sleepyhead," Gina whispered with a smile from her perch by his waist.

Rick managed to croak out a, "Hi," and gave her a loose smile in return. He turned his head back into the pillow to scratch his nose before reaching his hand out from under the sheet to rest on his wife's knee. He watched his thumb as it drew a lazy pattern on the side of her leg, and he was beginning to relax back into sleep again when his brain registered that it was too light for her to still be here. "What time's it?"

"About a half past two," she replied, her fingers still gently swirling through his hair.

"Hmm, okay..." The sentence took time to filter through, but suddenly he was sitting up, eyes wide. The sheet fell away, exposing his bare chest to the air conditioning, and Gina's hand remained at his neck as he'd shifted so quickly. "Where's Alexis?"

"She's at school," Gina spoke clearly but quietly, trying to be calming.

"But I-..."

She cut him off, "I took her this morning. You were out cold. I guess probably because you finished your book and came to bed to... celebrate... at about five thirty, and I just didn't go back to sleep." She looked up at him through her eyelashes as she let her nails rake down his chest towards his navel, but he was frowning.

"But why are you back here now? You never come home this early."

At that, she pressed her palm to his chest. "You weren't answering your phone, and I wanted to know how soon you'd be submitting the script." She scratched her nails against his skin again.

His eyebrow rose as he gave her an incredulous glare, "You wanted to know, less than six hours after I finished it, when I'd be sending it in?" Rick carefully took her wrist and removed her hand from his body, placing it haphazardly in her lap. "You know full well that Alexis has to read it first, and she won't be home from school until at least four."

They both heard the front door open and close, and Alexis' hurried steps across the living room towards her father's office. "Dad? Are you ok?"

"In here, Pumpkin," he called to her, still glaring at Gina. Alexis burst into the bedroom.

"What's going on, why did the principal send me home early? Are you ok? Why are you laid up in bed? Is it Gram?" The questions seemed never-ending but he cut her off with her name in a raised voice and sharp tone.

"Before we have this conversation... all of us..." he glanced at Gina while still addressing his daughter, "I would like to take the opportunity to put some clothes on. Please. Can you both go to the kitchen? I'll be out in a minute."

Alexis nodded and turned away to leave the room while Gina slowly rose from the bed, only breaking eye contact with Rick when she also turned to leave. He waited until they had both gone to shut his eyes and lean his head against the headboard with a deep sigh. Then he threw the sheet off, leaving himself completely exposed, swung his legs out of the bed and padded into the bathroom.

After using the toilet and having a quick wash he felt more awake and ready to have the conversation he knew had been brewing for the last few days. Or maybe it had been a few weeks. Possibly even months. Either way, he knew it was overdue and it was time to stop putting it off. He moved back into the bedroom and pulled out some underwear. He was about to grab the sweatpants from the drawer below when he decided that this was not something he wanted to be remembered having been done in his old sweatpants with holes in. He moved to the closet and chose a pair of jeans and a crisp burgundy shirt, and put his favourite pair of shoes on.

When he was dressed, he leaned his hands against the top of his chest of drawers and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked miserable, and exhausted, and haggard. The stubble wasn't really helping with that overall but he didn't have time to shave. His stomach rumbled though he didn't feel hungry. In fact, he was nauseous and he knew there was only one thing that was going to shift that queasy instability that had plagued him lately. He moved into his office and plucked his phone and wallet off the desk, pocketing them both before he fastened his watch on in order to feel a little more put together.

As he purposefully walked to the kitchen, he stood tall. With a decision made, everything had gained a little more clarity. He just hoped he would survive the fallout.

* * *

There had been some small talk in the kitchen, but silence had fallen after about two minutes. Alexis was sipping at a glass of water, while Gina tapped away at her Blackberry. They both looked up when they heard Rick striding across the room towards them, but no one smiled. He had thunder in his eyes and anger was rolling off him in waves.

He stood between the two women and leaned his hands against the kitchen counter, gathering his thoughts before he spoke.

"Alexis, just so you know, I've finished the book. That is the crux of this conversation. Gina already knew because I woke her when I went to bed at incredibly early this morning, and that is why I was totally asleep when you left for school. I'm sorry I wasn't awake to take you myself, and it won't happen again." Alexis nodded once, not daring to say a word as Castle pushed away from the counter and stood up.

"You said the principal sent you home early today, did she say why?" His daughter shook her head and he took a deep breath. "I believe it was because Gina phoned the school and said it was a family emergency." He looked at his wife and she looked away, unwilling to make eye contact, proving him right. "As you can probably tell, there wasn't a family emergency, but there's about to be, so it's probably just as well."

Alexis looked alarmed, but knew better than to interrupt his flow, and he continued to direct his words to his wife. "Gina, as far as I'm concerned this incident is the last straw. I feel that this marriage should come to an end before anything worse happens. Please go and gather your essentials and leave." Alexis' eyebrows almost reached her hairline, while Gina seemed rooted to the spot, speechless and disbelieving. Rick carried on, riding roughshod over her incredulous consternation, "The school holidays start in a week and a half, so Alexis and I will go to the Hamptons for you to have a chance to properly pack your things."

Rick may have seemed calm on the outside but he was fighting an internal battle between anger, annoyance, and sadness that he'd let another marriage go to the dogs. He didn't have time to think about that now though, as Gina was starting to recover from the shock, and he felt that for once he wanted to keep the upper hand. "Come on Alexis," he held his hand out to his daughter, and she walked to his side, clinging to his hand and arm for dear life as she felt his fingers trembling slightly. He grabbed his jacket from the couch while Alexis went to open the front door. He turned to Gina to deal the final blow, "My lawyers will be in touch."

With that, before any response could be summoned, father and daughter were gone, no doubt in search of ice cream and hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. The front door closed quietly, and Gina slumped into the nearest kitchen stool.

"And then there was one."


	7. Chapter 7

Piles of books surrounded him as he stood in the middle of his office, in the middle of his loft, in the middle of a long, long night. Another night of being too restless to sleep for more than an hour at a time, and only getting that just after Alexis went to bed too. He wondered at first if there was an alarm going off at about eleven thirty every night, or maybe it could've been a stopwatch, if he even owned a stopwatch. He'd probably got one somewhere. But for whatever reason, sleep eluded him.

Usually, when this used to happen, he would sit down and write. But he'd finished Storm Fall and Alexis had read it through for him, with a box of tissues, and now that it was with the publishers for whatever it was they did to his manuscript with their red pens and margin squiggles. Usually, he'd start coming up with something new to write around this time of year but, well, it just wasn't happening.

And that was how, at three in the morning, Richard Castle came to be standing, with his pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips and a slight sheen of the sweat of exertion on his bare chest, in the middle of his office surrounded by every book that had been on his shelves.

"Time to put all these back in a different order."

* * *

Beckett had managed to get into a good routine in the last few days and she knew it wouldn't last so she was making the most of it. Out of the precinct by eight, stopping off at the corner shop close to her apartment for some fresh food that she took home to cook, followed by a soak in her tub and into bed with a book at about eleven. She was feeling more put together than she had in a long while, simply because she'd been eating properly and getting a good amount of sleep.

On this particular evening, she decided to curl up under the blankets with another of her favourite Castle novels. She'd had a brief dalliance with Patterson for the last couple of weeks but she thought it was time to return to some classic vintage Castle. She was nothing if not loyal when it came to this handsome author, and she smiled as she ran her hand over his photograph on the dust jacket of _A Rose For Everafter_. Kate settled in to read a couple of chapters before she felt her eyelids drooping.

She dropped her bookmark in place and turned off the light, falling asleep with the book clutched tightly to her chest.

* * *

It's easy to look inconspicuous if you don't try too hard, but it takes years of practice. Storm crosses his ankle onto his opposite knee and looks around the small park before returning his attention to the information he's scrolling through on his phone. If you watched his face you'd think he was interested in the text, but he's barely reading it at all. He glances up again, his eyes narrowing, the feeling that someone is watching him beginning to creep in around his neck, but there's no one around.

He hears her before he sees her. The rhythmic click of stiletto on pavement that he knows is accompanied by the lilt of her hips and the bounce of her hair. He keeps his eyes fixed on the screen in his palm, even when he can see her feet wrapped in those tiny, strappy shoes and the beginnings of her long, long legs in his peripheral vision. He senses her shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and thinks she's probably just put her hands on her hips because he hasn't acknowledged her yet.

Wouldn't want to keep her waiting too long, but... it's so _fun_ when she's annoyed with him.

She's about to fold her arms across her chest and start tapping her foot when he slides his phone into his jacket pocket and leans back on the bench. She watches him slowly sweep his gaze up her body, feeling his eyes on her just as surely as they are his hands. By the time they finally, _finally_, make eye contact, there's a faint blush trying to make itself known across her cheeks, and the worst part of it is that he knows what this does to her, how it makes her feel, how she'd rather skip dinner and go straight to dessert, as long as dessert is _him._

Not that that's what happened last time they worked together, you understand. But, as they're both fully aware, it was a near miss. A very near miss.

His eyes smolder and his lips begin to curve into a smile as she flicks her eyebrow at him, a silent conversation in progress.

_Good to see you, Strike._

_What's taking you so long, Storm?_

He rises slowly from the bench, doing up one button of his blazer when they stand almost eye-to-eye. She allows herself to glance quickly at how his broad chest fills the velvet jacket, the red tie and purple shirt accentuating the blue eyes that seem to pierce her very soul and see straight into her hopes and dreams. And in those moments, she knows she can't stop herself from hoping that he will always be in her dreams, and preferably in her reality.

She steps into his personal space, raising a hand to smooth down his lapel, and his hands reach for her hips of their own accord. Seeing is great, but touching is another thing entirely, and he wonders how they can bear to be apart for so long. His palms press up to her waist, taking in the smooth silken lines of the blood red dress that's only attached by one shoulder, leaving the other side entirely open and dangerously available to him. He takes a deep breath and sighs, his exhalation creating goosebumps over her bare skin, and the way she shivers isn't helping his self-control.

"Derrick," she whispers enticingly, leaning into him, allowing his arms and his scent to wrap around her as her eyelashes flutter on her cheeks. She grasps his jacket and gently tugs him towards her, craving the feel of his lips on hers. They're about to kiss when a cab's horn blares, breaking the moment, eyes flying wide open, barely an inch apart.

He quirks another smile, and finally replies, his voice low and intimate, "We have to stop meeting like this, Clara." Her smile matches his, and she reaches for his hand. Their fingers intertwine of their own accord and he lifts their joined hands up to gently kiss the back of her hand. She tries not to let it show how the simple touch turns her insides to mush, but he wouldn't have done it if he didn't know the affect he has on her. "Hungry?"

Her eyes flash with barely contained lust, "For food, Strike," he laughs. "Food first." She nods once, ducking her head to hide her blush. "Come on then."

She lets him lead her away from the bench and they head towards an Italian restaurant tucked between a noisy bar and an all-night store. "It's called Garabaldi's? Seriously?"

"Seriously." She rolls her eyes at him and he just grins. "What? It's a good restaurant, Strike, shut up. Perfect for a.." he coughs to cover up the next word, "..date."

"This is not a date, Storm."

"But if it were, it would be our seventh. And you still refuse to put out for me, Clara."

She feigns outrage, "With lines like that, who could blame me!? You sure know the way to a girl's heart."

He levels a glare at her as they cross the street, "Anyway... the restaurant's owned by the Lapaglia family, and I have reason to believe they have some involvement in the case."

"Well then, I suppose I'll let you share my tiramisu."

"Oh so generous, Miss Strike, thank you so much." He opens the door of the restaurant, covered by a green and white striped canopy, bowing slightly as she sashays past him.

"Anytime, Storm... Anytime."

* * *

At half past seven in the morning, Alexis found her father curled up in a tight ball on the couch in his office, half on and half under the blanket from his bed. As she quietly approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder, she noticed that he was clutching a large notebook to his chest. She knelt down and tried to pry it from his grasp but he only held it tighter. He shifted in his sleep and she could see a bit more of what it was.

Alexis gasped, "The Storm ideas book! Oh, Dad..." She squeezed his shoulder and left him where she'd found him, walking out to the kitchen to put the coffee machine on and get herself some breakfast before school.


	8. Chapter 8

Rick yawned in his sleep, and began to stretch his back out when his movement was impaired by something unyielding at his feet. It was such an odd sensation to him that, coupled with the sharp ache in his back, it roused him immediately. He opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Office couch, blanket from his bedroom, notebook on his chest, afternoon sun streaming in through the glass... wait, notebook? He picked the book up and looked at it, his sleep-fogged brain taking a while to figure it out.

"Oh, my Storm book," he realised in a glum whisper. The front door slammed, and the click of heels resounded through the loft.

"Richard?"

"In here, Mother."

Martha strolled into his office and came to a dramatic stop, handbag at her elbow, bright pink peacoat over her arm as she held up her arms in exasperation. "Richard, you're... Did you really sleep on the couch?" He gave her a look and it was answer enough. "Alexis called me during her lunch break, she was worried about you, darling, so I came over."

Rick put his feet on the floor and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, notebook cast aside. "My daughter is worried about me." He groaned, "What the hell does that say about my parenting skills? Or lack of." He felt the couch shift next to him and the familiar perfume and arm of his mother surrounded him.

"She's a great kid. Of course she's worried about you, it's in her nature." He rubbed his hands up and down his face and looked over at her. "And darling, if we're having truth hour, I'm worried about you too. You're going through another divorce, you're about to lose a lot of money because of that, you just killed off the character you've been writing about for a decade, and you have no idea where you're going next."

He groaned, and dropped his head into his hands again, "Thank you for adequately summing up how godawful my life is right now, Mother."

She rolled her eyes, "Oh shut up, Richard! It's time to stop this pity party before it even begins. There are lots of good things in your life right now. Top of that list is Alexis, as you well know. I'd like to think I'm somewhere up there too, but it'd be nice to hear it from you..." Martha could fish for compliments as well as the next woman, but today she was destined to only be on the receiving end of her son's glares.

Shrugging her arm from his shoulders, Rick got up and began pacing around his office, running his hand through his hair in frustration as he tried to come up with the right words. He didn't seem to notice he was still only in his Batman pyjama bottoms, and Martha felt a wave of nostalgia for a time some thirty or so years previous when her ten-year-old son would run around their tiny apartment trying to emulate his masked hero. She didn't try to hide her small smile, and he didn't look up to catch it, focused as he was on the floor.

"There's this... it's strange, I... it's..." he stumbled over his words, suddenly unsure of how to form sentences.

She took pity on him. "Just start at the beginning, Richard."

He stopped moving and looked at her before taking a deep breath and trying to collect his thoughts. "I've been dreaming about this one woman for ages now."

"Who?"

"I wish I knew," he whispered, a loud sob escaping his chest, taking him by surprise, and he cried out, "God, I wish I knew, Mother!"

Great actress though she was, even Martha Rodgers could not hide her surprise at her son's outburst. She composed herself as he began pacing the room again, "How long exactly has this been going on?"

"Eight months, at least."

Her eyebrows rose of their own volition, "Eight months!? What were you doing about eight months ago, let's see... still married for a start..."

"And there was a lot of book signings, the paperback of the last Storm was out around then. I keep trying to think if maybe she was at one of those, but every time I do, I end up seeing her face on every person in the line." He sighed, pausing his steps with his hands on his hips. "I just can't stop thinking about her. I mean, I was stuck on 'Storm Fall,' I had no idea where I was going with it, then I started dreaming about her and it was like the words couldn't get from my head and onto my laptop fast enough."

Martha sat enraptured, certain he couldn't be making this up. Yet it seemed so surreal.

"It's like... it's like having a phantom muse. After I dream about her, I write prolifically, and it's mostly pretty good stuff, even if it sometimes has nothing to do with anything at all. But if she doesn't appear in my dreams for a while, the words dry up and everything is terrible."

"And... then you have another dream and the cycle continues," she prompted.

"Yeah, yeah," he nodded. "It's so strange."

"And your sleeping patterns have been shot, Alexis told me."

He started pacing again, and she really though he might wear a hole in the floor. "Yeah, except for the last few days when I've got an hour or so before eleven and then nothing the rest of the night, there's been no rhythm to when I get sleep at all, except for usually not during the night." He stopped and finally slumped down onto the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes shut tightly. "No wonder Alexis is worried about me when she keeps finding me dead to the world, or late to meet her for something... or, worse, not even making it at all."

Martha gently ran her hand over his back, soothing him as best she could, all the while having no idea how to help.

* * *

Black.

Everything is black.

Except the tall three-legged stool in front of him. That is white. He tugs at his dark grey pants as he sit down on it and looks around.

Still black.

So black that he can't tell if he's in a large room or a small room, or any sort of room at all.

When he faces forward again there's a white stool there that matches his. He raises his eyebrows and then shrugs, looking around again, squinting into the darkness that engulfs him and the white stools, in their little pool of light.

"Hi."

His head whips around before he's even realised it's doing it, eyes seeking the source of the single syllable.

His eyes go wide.

It's her.

_Her._

The woman of his dreams.

Calmly sitting on the stool in front of him, saying 'hi' like they've known one another for a hundred lifetimes. Maybe they have known each other for a hundred lifetimes. _Shit_. He fiddles with the collar of his white button-down shirt and clears his throat.

Finally, he squeaks out a response, "Hi back." He coughs again and tries to keep from making eye contact, the embarrassed blush rising up to his ears as he makes a careful study of her four-inch heels: black, no-nonsense, boots that disappear up her dark grey suit pants that co-ordinate with the light grey waistcoat and simple white shirt like his own.

He's surprised when suddenly she's in his field of vision, actively seeking his eyes by leaning down from her perch on the stool. "Up here, Mr Castle." They both sit up in sync with one another and she flicks her eyebrow up at him with a distinctly flirtatious smirk.

"Please, call me Rick," he begins, before doing a double-take. "Wait a second, how do you know my name?" Now that he's looking at her he doesn't think he'll ever be able to stop, and he doesn't even try to hide his fascination.

She shakes her head with a smile, "I can't tell you that." That makes him frown and pout a little.

He's about to ask why she can't, when he changes tack, "What's your name?"

Her smile fades, "I can't tell you that either." She anticipates his desire to know why, "If you can't remember it for yourself, I can't tell you. Don't try to give me a name that isn't my own either." She tucks her hair behind her ears while he drinks in her every movement.

"Well, what can you tell me?"

She breaks the eye contact he'd made to look down to her left, her lips pursing slightly. "What you see is what you get, Rick."

He nods once, taking it all in and trying to make sense of it all.

"I can see the cogs turning in your brain, you know," she says, making him smile. "Don't over-think it. Just accept it for what it is."

"Why is this happening?"

"Because you're not ready."

Wow, she sounds pissed all of a sudden. "Why're you upset about me not being ready? Ready for what?"

"Ugh, could you be more dense, Rick? Come on!" She rolls her eyes and he wonders if he's ever seen anyone look so cute when they're pissed off. "Would you focus, please?"

"I am focused." That earns him a glare, and he doesn't think he can take much more of this. "Please, tell me your name. Please."

She makes to stand with a shake of her head, and he copies her. "Goodnight, Rick."

Ever hopeful, he asks, "Until tomorrow?"

She begins to walk away into the black. "Pfft, in your dreams."


	9. Chapter 9

"Yo!" Beckett looked up from the paperwork scattering her desk to see Esposito and Ryan pulling their coats on. "Got a fresh one, you in?"

It shouldn't even have been a decision, just a simple 'yes' would suffice, but she found herself stalling. "No. Hand me your paperwork from the one we just closed yesterday evening, I'll get through it while you guys make a start with the new case."

Ryan gathered up his and his partner's files, whisking them over to her desk, "Thanks, Beckett, owe you one." She shook her head with a small smile as they raced to the elevator. She could feel it in her bones that it was going to be a tough day so a couple of hours with her head down in reports sounded like a more sedate way to start than at a crime scene.

She was still writing an hour or so later when a shadow fell across her desk. "Not accepting calls, Beckett?" She looked up to find Montgomery standing next to her. "I just had a call from Esposito, said you weren't picking up your phone."

"Oh..." Beckett looked around her desk and shuffled a few files until she found her phone, ringer turned off. "Oops. I was doing their paperwork."

"That's what Esposito said to me." Montgomery smiled at her, "Just call him back."

"Yes, sir." She opened her phone and found four missed calls and a couple of voicemails. She dismissed all the notifications and went straight to calling Esposito.

"Sorry, Espo..."

"No worries Beckett, just wanted to give you a heads up. The case seems to be a pretty simple pop and drop, so we'll cover it."

"Oh, thanks Espo, I appreciate it."

"You might not when I tell you why... Perlmutter's here and grumbling about a certain medical examiner we all know being on the warpath. Maybe you could go over to the morgue and, I dunno, whatever girls do when one of them is being weird."

Beckett could barely contain her laugh, "Yes, I'll go talk to Lanie. Thanks Espo." She hung up and stood to make a cup of coffee before she carried on with the paperwork.

* * *

Kate strode into the morgue, her heels clicking against the vinyl floor in a squeaky kind of way. "Hey Lanie."

"Don't you 'hey Lanie' me, Kate Beckett!"

Kate immediately stopped in her tracks. "What did I do now?" She wasn't playing dumb, she just had no clue what she might have done to be in the firing line. "You know what, don't answer that. Let's go get some lunch."

Lanie gave her a death stare as she pulled her jacket on over her scrubs. "As long as you're buying."

"Whatever you want..." Lanie swept out of the morgue and Kate took the opportunity to send Esposito a swift text message as she trailed along behind. He replied almost instantly to her 'WTF?' message with 'No idea!' and she shook her head, hiding her grin from her friend as they got into the elevator.

As she and Lanie stood in line at the food truck, it was becoming clearer what had been going on: Lanie had another break-up under her belt and this time it wasn't her doing. Or so she said, anyway. Kate wasn't convinced, but offered her advice when it was requested. And over their bowls of goat curry and rice, Lanie begged for something to take her mind off it.

"Well it's not like I've been on any dates lately..." Lanie fixed Kate with a glare.

"But something is going on. You've been more settled recently. Is it a guy?"

Kate took a moment to decide how to reply, before settling on an abridged version of the truth, "Sort of."

"Sort of?! What kind of answer is that?!" Lanie's outburst made Kate laugh. "Don't you laugh at me!"

"Okay, sorry, yes, it is a guy. A guy has been making me more settled recently."

Lanie whispered triumphantly, "I knew it!" But Kate could barely hold in her mirth.

"Yeah, the guy of my dreams!" Lanie's face fell. "I've had some vivid dreams the last few months is all."

"Spill. Now."

"It started before I broke up with Will. I'd been reading a book and it obviously struck a chord with my subconscious, because I've been dreaming about it ever since, but with me as one of the lead characters."

"One of? And which book?" Lanie asked.

Kate tried to hide the slight blush that was rising on her cheeks. "It was 'Storm Approaching'. And before you ask, yes the guy is the author and in my dream he's Derrick Storm." She admitted it all in a rush, an embarrassed grunt escaping her straight after.

Lanie gasped, "You went to get your book signed by Richard Castle, and you've been fantasising about him ever since!"

"Ugh, Lanie! You make it sound so sordid."

"What? It isn't? What's the point of dreaming about Richard-freakin'-Castle if you're not going to have some scenes that require iced water? That man is fine, girl!"

"Laaaaniiiiie...!"

* * *

The green and white theme continues inside the restaurant, with accents of red. Naturally. "Why do all Italian restaurants have the same décor?" He whispers in her ear, his breath tickling across her skin, and she shrugs a quiet laugh.

Storm grabs her hand and squeezes it as a waiter approaches them, "Table for two?" he asks and receives a nod in reply. The waiter leads them to a tiny round table in the middle of the restaurant, but Strike has her eye on the one in the corner.

"Could we sit over there please?" She gives the waiter a smile, and he acquiesces, waving his arm towards the corner table, which is just as tiny as the previous one, but has the advantage of both of them being able to see the whole room, rather than half each. The waiter leaves them with the menu and goes to get them a bottle of the house red wine. Storm pulls his chair alongside Strike's and gently places his arm over her shoulder, discarding his menu to share hers.

While they pretend to make decisions about dinner, the stereo plays a mixture of Ella, Etta, and Billie, and his fingers trip over her bare shoulder to the beat of the music. She watches the waiting staff and steals glances at him out of the corner of her eye, and he pretends not to notice while he looks around at the other diners and steals glances at her right back. He leans a little closer into her with the pretence of pointing something out on the menu, and whispers, "I forgot to tell you how beautiful you are tonight, Clara."

She can't hide the way her breath gets stuck in her lungs, any hope of responding totally dashed by the reverence in his voice, and as he brushes his lips over her earlobe she's not sure she'll ever breathe again.

"Storm..." she whispers once, more insistent the second time. He leans away with dark eyes and a smug smile across his face. "Choose something to eat, the waiter's been watching us for the last six minutes and it's getting creepy."

"Yes ma'am." He raises his hand to call the waiter over, and orders the Milanese risotto and the lasagne, choosing by reading the first things his eyes glance over on the menu. He returns to feathering kisses across the sensitive skin on her neck, apparently totally enraptured and unable to pay attention to anything else.

"St-... oh..." she manages a gasp as he brings his tongue into play, but decides to get ahead before it can go any further. "Derrick," she growls, shoving his thigh with her hand in an attempt to get him to snap out of it. He jolts his head away from her, turning her face to him with a finger on her chin. She looks at him from under her eyelashes, trying to give him a reproachful glare, "Try to restrain yourself for a while, at least until we can get out of here."

"Later?" he requests.

"Later," she promises.

He clears his throat and shifts his chair a small distance away from her, removing himself from temptation. She gives him a small smile and looks around the room at the other diners.

They're just starting their meals when some fresh faces walk into the restaurant. Storm glances over for a split second before returning his attention to Strike. "That's Lapaglia, second through the door," he whispers around a forkful of lasagne. She hums in reply, only looking at the new arrivals by the corner of her eye.

They eat quietly, pretending to whisper to each other when really they're listening to the conversation going on at the little bar a couple of yards away. It's a small place, and the people aren't exactly trying to keep quiet. They get some information about the extended family's health, the usual catching up sort of chatter, but as Storm swallows his last mouthful of lasagne – possibly one of the best he's tasted outside of Italy, actually – his ears prick up at the mention of a certain JT Richards, the reason he's even sitting here, the agent masquerading as a doorman.

Lapaglia scoffs, "Glad he's finally out of the way! Things were going real slow in Brooklyn with him there. Now we can get the business back to normal."

A broad-shouldered man, who had come in with Lapaglia, speaks up, "It'll be good to have Varín's boys off our backs, and his nose out of our business." Strike taps Storm's wrist with her finger, and waits till she has eye contact to whisper to him.

"That name is in the file, Roberto Varín's a big-time drug lord."

"How big?" he asks, his eyebrow rising into his hairline.

"International big." Her whisper drops to almost nothing, "Runs everything from cocaine to marijuana to meth and heroin up to the US and Canada from Columbia, Peru, Brazil, you name a country in South America and he has multiple fingers in multiple pies there. We think he ships to South Africa as well, just for 'fun', just because he can."

Storm puts his fork into her risotto to help her finish it. "I guess we'd better pay him a visit in Brooklyn then." He observes the way a cloud of disappointment passes quickly over her face, replaced by determination. "Tomorrow, that is. Tonight, we have plans..."

They don't stay for dessert.

They make it through the eight block walk and as far as the elevator of Storm's building before they even touch one another, gazing into each other's eyes and generally getting in the way of other pedestrians on the sidewalk. But the second the doors of the elevator close, they pounce on each other and she pours months of longing into kissing him, her hands running through his hair. His tongue battles with hers, his arms holding her tight to him. He spins her around, pinning her between the wall and his body, revelling in the feel of her curves pressed to his taut muscles as he settles his thigh between her legs, capturing her moan in his eager mouth as his body rises up with the motion of the elevator gliding to a halt.

They barely notice they've arrived at the ninth floor until the bell chimes, sounding just like a phone ringing.

* * *

She reached for her phone and took the call as she tried to get her brain out of the dream and into reality. "Beckett... yeah... ok, Ryan, I'll be there in thirty." She flopped back on the bed with a loud sigh, frustrated that she'd been woken from the scene that, as Lanie so eloquently put it, would have surely needed iced water.


	10. Chapter 10

Waking before the alarm on his phone went off was something of a novelty nowadays for him. On this particular morning, feeling rested from a full night's sleep and waking naturally was, as they say, the best thing since sliced bread. It was time to head straight into the storm and negotiate the divorce settlement, and he'd needed all the rest he could get. He yawned, stretching his lean muscles out across the mattress, before he got up and made his way into the bathroom, once again determined not to look too shabby in front of his soon-to-be ex-wife.

As he looked in the mirror, he rubbed his hand over the stubble dusted over his chin and cheeks. It already had a couple of days growth and with a shrug of his shoulders he decided to leave it another day or two more. After all, if George Clooney could pull off designer stubble, so could Richard Castle.

The wardrobe decision took longer than the shower, and he was still wrapped in a towel in his closet when he heard Alexis calling him from his office.

"Good morning, Pumpkin!"

She'd found him and stuck her head around the door, "Dad? Why are you still in the closet?"

"What d'you mean, still?" He frowned.

"I heard the shower turn off ages ago. Having trouble deciding what to wear again?" He hummed in reply, ignoring the subtle dig at how long it took him to pick his outfits. "Look, wear the suit with the subtle blue pinstripe, and this light blue shirt. Do you need a tie?"

"Maybe. I could put one in my pocket," he suggested, reaching for a particularly hideous green and yellow abomination.

"This one." Alexis handed him a plain navy silk tie, and pointed to the black shoes she knew he was favouring at the moment. "Do you want me to shine your shoes?" She gave him a small smile.

"No thank you, they're okay, shouldn't you be going to school?"

"Yes, I should. But I couldn't leave without making sure my poor old dad was properly dressed!" She patted his shoulder and turned to leave.

"Hey!" He sounded affronted and put on his best pout as she looked over her shoulder at him. "Where's my kiss?" He pointed at his cheek.

"If you think I'm giving you a kiss with that much spiky stubble, you can think again, buster." She grinned, "Bye Dad!"

* * *

"Look, Rick, I know it's not really an ideal situation but the fact is it's you who is filing for divorce, not her, and the pre-nup was very clear on the outcome if that happened." Rick sighed and bowed his head. Much as he hated to admit it, his lawyer was right.

He pulled his tie from his jacket pocket and began to slip it through his collar as he continued, "Didn't we put something in there about Alexis? Like a 'don't mess with my daughter' clause?" His lawyer chuckled, the light bouncing off his balding head as it shook.

"The fact is, you're going to have to pay out a lot of money for this. Thankfully not fifty per cent, but it's going to hurt."

"Guess I'd better get another bestseller written then!" Rick's sarcasm wasn't fooling the lawyer in the slightest, especially since his client had said almost exactly the same thing during the previous divorce.

"Or, in the meantime, ask Black Pawn for an advance on the next book."

"Huh. That's not a bad idea, Charlie!" Rick's smile fell almost as quickly as it had appeared. "Except it's Gina I'll have to ask for it."

"How about I ask for you in the meeting? Soften the blow for you a bit." Rick simply nodded, not looking up. "Alright then. Are you ready? It's time to go."

"Ready as I'll ever be." He twiddled the knot of his tie, ran his hand through his hair and stood tall as he followed Charlie from the lawyer's suite into the conference room. Gina and her lawyer, one of the senior lawyers from the Black Pawn office he noted, were already there, both looking immaculate as they stood by the side table where a few cups and a carafe of coffee had been laid on.

Charlie took a seat and gestured with a business-like smile to the chairs on the opposite side of the table, "Shall we begin?"

* * *

He's tired. No, wait, rewind. He's beyond tired, so exhausted that there is surely only one cure.

Ice cream.

He serendipitously finds himself outside Sundaes & Cones on East Tenth Street, not entirely sure how he got there, but glad nonetheless when he looks through the window and sees her waving to him. A little flick of her fingers and a tiny smile, but she's there and that makes all the difference.

He joins her in the middle of the queue, greeting her with a breathless, "Hey..." that leaves him wondering if he really is a successful author of more bestselling books than he can hold in one go. But she smiles and replies in kind and it's like the clouds have moved on from right above his head and he can almost feel the weight of his worries beginning to lift off his shoulders.

Suddenly he wishes she were real, that the floaty blue dress that barely grazes her knees were real, that the sunglasses that are perched on top of her head holding her hair back were real. She reaches out to him and touches his forearm with her slim hand. Even through his jacket and shirt he can feel her fingertips branding him, leaving marks he'll never want to wash away. "Hey, don't start doubting me. I might disappear like Tinkerbell if you say you don't believe..."

"I do believe in fairies! I do! I do!" She laughs, appreciating his quick mind calling up Peter Pan as if from nowhere, and squeezing his arm gently before letting go.

"That's alright then."

They reach the front of the queue and he realises he has no idea what to order. She requests a chocolate cone with multi-coloured sprinkles, while his eye picks out a flavour he's never even considered could be an ice cream.

"Wasabi?"

"Yes sir, one wasabi cone coming right up!"

Rick's eyes widen and he starts to protest but she's laughing, bent over with a hand on her knee while she clutches her cone, and it's all he ever wants to hear for the rest of his life.

"Alright, I'll take one for the team..." he says as he glares at the guy behind the counter, who has generously covered his wasabi cone with chocolate sprinkles. She's already made her way to sit outside on one of the wooden benches and he follows her after handing over a couple of bills and telling them to keep the change.

The sunlight is dappled through the trees of the leafy street, casting golden spots all over the sidewalk, and making her dress look like it has pale yellow polka dots. He sits down next to her, trying to keep a respectable distance between them, as if they're on their first date and he's been ordered by her father to keep his hands off her. But she's having none of it, shifting closer to eradicate all trace of air between the sides of their bodies. She swaps her ice cream to her other hand and loops her arm through his.

"You gonna eat that ice cream or what?"

He jolts out of his reverie and takes a massive chunk off the cone. It's almost minty and the chocolate sprinkles make it taste decadently sweet. And then the wasabi kicks in and his eyes nearly bulge right out of their sockets.

"What the hell?!" he exclaims, around his mouthful of fiery frozen death. He flaps his free hand around, jostling her arm as she grips his bicep. She's still giggling when he's finally calmed down, or at least enough to form coherent thoughts again.

"Maybe it's the sort of ice cream you should lick..." she suggests, her face turned towards him with a lascivious grin plastered all over it.

And there goes all hope of ever forming coherent thoughts ever.

Or, maybe not.

"I can think of something else I'd rather lick..." he whispers as he leans towards her, closing the distance to the stray sprinkle on her top lip until he darts his tongue out and catches the tip of her nose. She startles, going still as he retreats to a safe distance, anticipating a counter-attack with the scrunch of his face.

A few seconds later he hears a distinctly squelchy thud, and his eyes startle open as retribution is dealt, meted out in a rush by her sudden movement towards him, or as he rather belatedly realises, towards his lips.

His reaction to the onslaught is instinctive. The first thing to go is the ice cream, which makes a familiar squelchy thud as it hits the sidewalk. His arms wind around her, pulling her closer to him as she grips his neck to keep him there with one hand and runs the other hand through his soft hair. His tongue darts out again and finds the sprinkle he wasn't aiming for earlier and he can't help but grin because he's kissing her. _She_ is kissing him, the woman of his dreams is making out with him on a bench outside an ice cream shop and if this isn't the best way of being cheered up ever he doesn't want to hear about it.

"What's so funny, Rick?" she whispers onto his grinning lips.

"You make me so happy." She runs her hands through his hair and they kiss again and again and again, and he almost wishes to never wake up from this beautiful, glorious dream.

* * *

"This is a nightmare."

The hiss of her voice through the hidden microphone made Ryan's headphones squawk and he swore as he rubbed at his ears. Esposito gave him a sympathetic shrug, knowing there was nothing to be said that would improve their situation. There wasn't a whole lot they could do from the observation van anyway.

This undercover operation was not going well, and Beckett was becoming irate. It was only a matter of time before she officially went crazy, and because her partners knew it they were electing to stay in the van, out of her way. She was tired, it was too hot and noisy in the club, and her mind was beginning to drift to where she'd rather be – in bed with a good book.

Preferably one of _his_ books. Any of them would do, she loved them all. Anything that wasn't spending the night dancing, sweating, pretending to drink beer, and being eyed up by almost every male and at least half the females in the club, because of course she'd had to wear a scandalously tiny red dress with stupidly high heels that made her legs go on forever. She felt dirty from having so many eyes on her, never mind the occasional stray hand that had gone a-wandering.

"Do you wanna call it, Beckett?" Esposito's voice came through her earbud. She knew he was right, they should just stop, come back another night. And, God, it was so tempting to just say yes. Detective Beckett knew she shouldn't, but Kate had reached the end of her tether. The affirmative was on the tip of her tongue when there was a commotion at a booth near the back that caught her eye.

"No, he's here," Beckett replied, and she began to dance her way across the room to get a better look. "I've got a visual. Be ready to move in 2 minutes."

Within ninety seconds, the boys were ready and moving past the bouncers into the club to back Beckett up as she made a beeline for the perp, completely ignoring his security detail. There would be no more dicking around, no more time wasted. This guy had ordered the deaths of two innocent people and she had had enough of following him around, waiting for the right moment to arrest him.

When she got him into the box this smug bastard would rue the day he came between Detective Kate Beckett and Richard Castle.

* * *

A/N: I started a new job this week, so writing kind of went out the window, sorry. But, this chapter tips me over 20,000 words! Yay!


	11. Chapter 11

When Beckett led the newly-arrested perp out of the sweaty club at three in the morning, she wasn't surprised that it was raining. However, it was February so getting rained on in the tiny dress she was wearing wasn't exactly ideal. The irony of starting and ending her day with a cold shower was not lost on her, even if they had occurred for entirely different reasons.

As soon as the scumbag – as Ryan had decided to name him – was squared away into the squad car, Esposito appeared with an NYPD-issue rain coat which he wasted no time in wrapping around Kate's shoulders. "Come on, Beckett, I'm giving you a ride home." She began to protest but he was too quick for her, "He'll still be in lock-up in the morning. You need to get some sleep in your nice snuggly bed so you can properly rip into him after his sleepless night on concrete."

She shrugged, conceding the point. "Well, when you put it that way... Take me home, Javi."

* * *

She would never breathe a word about it to anyone, but waking up cocooned in blankets with Derrick Storm as the big spoon had been Clara Strike's favourite fantasy way to wake up for quite some time now. The reality is not disappointing in the slightest. His arm is wrapped gently but protectively around her, their legs are tangled together and his quiet exhalations tickle her neck. Yes, she really could get used to this.

A devious grin crosses her face. She could get used to the events of the night before too. She wiggles her shoulders and hips to get even closer to Storm and is rewarded with a deep, gravelly groan. She giggles silently and wiggles her hips again.

"Dammit Clara, was last night not enough for you?" He couldn't see her eyebrow rising to an elegant peak, but he doesn't need to because he knows it's there. He feathers a kiss across her shoulder and begins to smooth the palm of his hand downwards over her taut stomach muscles. The phone on his bedside table has other ideas...

* * *

"Beckett." As dispatch rattled off an address she jotted it down and tried to clear her mind of the dream she wished she was still having. She looked at her phone after hanging up and was about to throw it across the room when she remembered she needed to call Ryan and Esposito. Maybe the next time dispatch woke her less than two hours after she fell asleep she'd pitch it out of the window.

* * *

"Morning, Lanie." The medical examiner looked up at the detective from the back of the OCME van and raised an eyebrow.

"Damn girl, did you get out the wrong side of bed this morning?"

Kate sighed and tried not to rub the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Long night, previous case not finished yet, though we got the guy, and I still don't know what I did in a past life that gave us the call this morning."

Esposito came up along side them to answer the unspoken question, "Wallis' team got called out at two A.M., they were on call from midnight. We got the next one." He shrugged and clapped Ryan on the shoulder as he arrived. Ryan just groaned in response.

"Well, since we're all here... shall we?" proposed Lanie.

"Yeah. Why not."

As the group passed into the office, they collectively paused to take in the crime scene.

"Well, this is definitely Beckett-flavoured," offered Esposito before he headed for the nearest uniformed officer to see what had been found so far. Ryan peeled off to speak to the CSU techs, leaving Lanie and Kate to slowly step towards the victim.

Arranged in the centre of a chalked pentagram, complete with flickering candles and occult symbols, the as-yet-unknown male was face down on the floor tiles. Beckett's eyes narrowed, somewhere in her mind a tiny bell was ringing and she desperately tried to hear it. Lanie waited for the tech taking photographs to give her the nod to say he'd finished, and with that she carefully stepped into the chalk markings to begin her initial examination.

Esposito came up beside Beckett and reeled off the information he'd gained. "Name's Marvin Fisk, lawyer, he worked here. Found by the cleaning staff at around six ten, and the one who came in here first hasn't taken it all that well. She's in the ladies' rest room just around that corner. There's an officer with an iron stomach keeping an eye on her." She nodded in reply and turned away from the crime scene to begin her investigation.

* * *

When she wakes she's not entirely sure where in the city she is, but he's driving one of his beloved Fords and his hand is resting heavily on her thigh. She smiles. "Hey. You dozed off for a bit there. Did you not get much sleep last night?" Oh so innocent. Two can play at that game.

"Y'know, I seem to remember we had some pressing... _issues_... that I had to take care of. So, no, I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Oh well, it's a shame to be kept awake by issues." She hums in reply and Derrick glances over at her to waggle his eyebrows. Clara couldn't help the laugh that erupts from her and the grin that spreads across her face. He gives her leg a quick squeeze before he lets it go to change down the gears for a stop light.

"Remind me of the plan again?"

"Alright, but only because it's you. We're heading into Brooklyn to speak with Roberto Varín. We even have an appointment."

"That's incredibly civilised."

"Tell me about it. Hopefully he'll cooperate and dish out the dirt on whoever killed our man."

The rest of the journey passes quickly and quietly. Storm pulls up on a leafy street watched over by The Shrine Church of Saint Bernadette and kills the engine. "Unlikely place for a mafia compound, isn't it?" she asks as an SUV rolls past.

He looks over the street to the walled garden, trees mostly camouflaging the one storey building from prying eyes. He shrugs, "Never judge a book by its cover."

They step out of the car and a breeze wafts down the street, rustling the leaves in the trees and making the fronts of their jackets flap a little, though not enough to reveal the heat they're packing. It ruffles Storm's hair and Strike is about to reach up to brush it off his face when he beats her to it and gives her a cautionary look. _Business before pleasure today, Strike._

He lets her ring the doorbell, knowing full well that it's pointless. They'll have been clocked on the closed circuit cameras when he was parking the car. The occupants of the building wait the requisite amount of time before opening the door and they are greeted by a swarthy man in his late forties who looks like his _mama_ knows how to cook a mean lasagne. He gestures them inside without a word and closes the door with a quiet finality that puts Strike on edge.

Storm looks as detached as ever as he unbuttons his jacket and removes his gun from the shoulder holster, checking the safety is on before placing it down on the sideboard by the door. She frowns at his actions and he raises an eyebrow at her, glancing at his gun then back to her. _As if he'd see us if we were armed, Strike._ She copies his disarming with a frown that's partly at the situation they've walked into and partly wondering when she started hearing his thoughts.

Their welcoming committee gives them both a nod and turns, leading them through the hallway and into a living room. Strike is beginning to think this isn't an office for Varín, it's his compound, his headquarters. His home. She feels slightly better about leaving her gun behind, though she misses the comforting weight on her hip, because surely even a mobster wouldn't kill someone in his own house, right? Cleaning up the mess would be a bitch. Mr Silent leaves them in the room with the door open and his footsteps can be heard on the terracotta floor tiles as he goes deeper into the house.

They're not kept waiting long, as their gracious host appears three minutes later, introducing himself with warm smiles and friendly handshakes. Strike manages to not do a double take when Storm introduces himself as Dustin Hold and her as Colette Coup – _what the hell, Storm_. Varín asks them to follow him to his office, as if they have a choice in the matter. It's a nice gesture at least.

"So, how can I help you Mr Hold?" He sounds like he's smoked ten fat Cuban cigars every day since he popped out of his mother's womb. Strike feels like she'll be ignored for the rest of this conversation, and takes the opportunity to sneak glances around to get a feel of the man behind the reports on the file.

"An... associate of ours met an unfortunate end recently, Mr Varín, and we were wondering if you might be able to help us find out why."

The boss' face becomes solemn as he offers his condolences. Neither agent believes the act for a second. Storm gives a potted history of the incident and asks him if he knew JT Richards at all. Varín's face flickers to recognition but his voice is weakly denying it. "No, the name ain't familiar I'm afraid."

Strike chooses this time to draw attention to herself by crossing her legs and leaning her elbow on the armrest of the chair she is sat in. As Varín gives her his attention she flicks her eyebrow at him, _don't lie you scumbag._

His façade slips a little. _Good_, she thinks, _be scared of me._ He returns his gaze to Storm and gives him a wry shrug. "So maybe I knew the guy a little. Was beginnin' to wonder where he'd got to. He was doing some work for me when he wasn't too busy with that other job he was doin'."

Storm almost cuts across the end of his sentence, "What sort of work?"

"Oh just bitsa things, y'know? Drivin', deliverin', collectin'. Easy stuff. Didn't even hafta lend him a car, he used his own."

"Were his deliveries and collections always carried out smoothly?"

Varín nods, "Far as I can tell, sure."

Storm nods and stands abruptly. Strike warily follows suit. "Thank you for your time, Mr Varín."

"A pleasure, Mr Hold, Miz Coup."

Mr Silent appears at the office door as they exchange handshakes with the mob boss once more and leads them out to collect their guns. He opens the front door and ushers them out without any flourish or sound. Strike shudders involuntarily as they hit the warmth outside after ten minutes of cold air conditioning.

* * *

Beckett woke up without any blankets, limbs shivering as her muscles tried to keep warm, and she looked over at the clock on her bedside table with a resigned scowl. Half five was as good a time as any to get up and get moving. If she got a hustle on, she might get half an hour in the bullpen to herself to study the murder board and try to figure out what the little bell was ringing for in the back of her mind about Marvin Fisk.

In the shower, she briefly allowed herself the traitorous thought that she might have preferred a little longer with Derrick Storm.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I know, I'm sorry, my laptop cable gave up after four and a half years of dutiful service, and I've been so busy. There's a couple of one-shots in the works and I'm trying so hard to get back to Angel of Manhattan too.

* * *

Rick perched on a stool at the kitchen island, cup of forgotten coffee to his right, a mostly untouched slice of toasty on a side plate to his left, and the newspaper in front of him. He scratched at his chin and cheek absentmindedly, his fingernails reaching through the thick beard that had crept up on him over the last couple of weeks.

He'd been working on the crossword since before the sunrise; in fact, since the paper had arrive. It hadn't even hit his doorstep, he received it personally from the delivery guy, who was more than happy with receiving a fifty buck tip at four in the morning.

He heard, without really hearing, the shower come on upstairs. He glanced at the clock on the oven, which was blinking four zeros, and he frowned. Must've had a power cut overnight, when he was asleep. And he actually did sleep as well, just not for very long.

He was still puzzling over fifty-four across ("Jason Mraz song that spent a record seventy-six weeks on Billboard's Hot 100") when Alexis jogged down the stairs in her school uniform, ready for her day. He looked up from the paper as she stumbled down the last step.

"You okay, Pumpkin?" She seemed unable to move.

"Dad, when did your stubble turn into a beard?"

He grinned, "Makes me even more ruggedly handsome, right?"

Alexis walked cautiously to the fridge, like she was trying to keep at arm's length from a rabid beast. She plucked the orange juice from the door shelf. "Sure makes you look... something." His smile disappeared.

"Oh come on, it's not that bad." His daughter sat down opposite him at the kitchen island and waited until she had his full attention before her eyebrow slowly rose in an elegant arch. "It's not!"

She sighed. "You look like you've been sleeping rough for a week."

"Yeah, well..." he scratched his cheek, enjoying the rasping noise. "I like it," he muttered. Alexis shook her head indulgently and got up to make her breakfast while he returned to the crossword.

Their few minutes of peace ended abruptly as Martha flung the door open and positively crooned her good morning. She was halfway to the kitchen when she pulled up short and pointed to Rick.

"What is... that?"

He looked down at the Batman logo across his chest and then back up to his mother. "Batman?"

"No, not that." She poked the air towards his chest then gestured slightly higher. "...that."

Before Rick could fire off another ruggedly-handsome-themed retort, Alexis piped up around a spoon of cereal, "Dad's decided to grow a beard."

"It looks _awful_, Richard, shave it off before anyone else sees you." He rolled his eyes, wondering how it was his mother could speak in italics. She ignored him as she made a coffee, unwilling to look upon the unsightly mess on his chin.

A knock on the front door disturbed the domesticity, and all three looked at each other to see who would cave and go to open it first. At the second round of insistent knocking, Alexis gave in and went over to the door, peeping around the small gap before opening the door fully.

"Ah, Paula!" Rick called over to his publicist. "What a pleasant surprise! Coffee?" She ignored his question and got straight to the point in her own nasal way.

"What the hell have you done to your face?"

Rick rolled his eyes and put the coffee cup down with a little more force than he expected, causing the hot liquid to slosh onto his fingers. While he was running the cold water over the scolded skin, and knowing that arguments tended to abound whenever Paula showed up at the loft, Alexis and Martha took the opportunity to make themselves scarce.

"I've just not shaved for a few days, Paula, it's no big deal."

"No big deal?! What if someone saw you like this? Or you got a photo in the Ledger with the caption 'From Castle To Dumpster'?"

Rick sighed, "Actually, it's not good for guys to shave every day, it's all to do with skin and follicles." She looked at him incredulously. "What? It's true! I read it in a magazine at the dentist's office once."

Paula plonked herself onto a stool with a heavy sigh. "Ugh, whatever. Just get rid of it before you next go outside."

He slid her cup of coffee over with a grin. "I will."

* * *

When his agent finally left three hours later after hashing out the plan for the Storm Fall book launch party, Rick glanced at the paper and decided against attempting to finish the crossword. Instead, he headed to his bathroom, with a guilty look at his laptop as he walked past it, to have a rejuvenating shower. He made an excuse for not sitting down to do some work to himself, some crap about how his best ideas happen in the shower, but it sounded as hollow as a ghost, as Shakespeare once wrote.

He took his time in the shower, letting the steam open his pores before he stood with his towel slung around his hips in front of the steam-free mirror, droplets of water running from his hair down his bare chest. He picked up the shaving foam and tilted his head up to get a look under his chin, deciding to have some fun before taking the whole lot off.

When he finished, he surveyed his masterpiece and let out a tiny chuckle at the goatee that now adorned his face. He grabbed his phone and took a picture to send to Alexis. She would roll her eyes at him, but his mother would hate it, and that made it even better.

* * *

"What _is_ that?"

He finishes typing his train of thought and two paragraphs later looks up to see her frowning at him. "What's what?"

She pushes off from the door frame she's been leaning on and steps over to perch on his desk, swinging her bare feet a little as she points at his chin.

"The abhorrent fur on your face."

He grins, "Oh, my beard, you mean?"

She shakes her head a little. "It has to go."

"Oh what? Come on, not you too! I thought you'd like it at least..."

"No way, Rick," her eyebrow raises in an elegant arch that reminds him of Alexis but then he notices the deviant smirk lurking in her gaze. "Though I have heard that a beard can heighten certain... sensations."

He wiggles his eyebrows at her. "Oh really..." She hops down from the desk and plants her hands on the armrests of his chair to lean over him, giving him an eyeful of cleavage that has his mouth hanging open and his pulse rate quickening. He can't keep his hands to himself for long and he brings them to rest on her hips, his fingertips aching to disappear under the white button-down shirt.

She doesn't reply with her voice, but the kiss she bruises against his lips is all the answer he needs until he realises she's gone. He tentatively calls out for her, "Hey... where did you go?" and he can almost taste the relief at hearing her reply from... from his bedroom?

"It's kinda chilly in here without you..." He's out of his chair like a rocket and he almost trips over his own feet when he comes to an abrupt stop at the sight before him.

She's lying on her back, leaning up on her elbows in the middle of his bed, her head tilted questioningly to the side as she watches him carefully. Oh, and she's naked. Yep. Not a stitch.

He gulps loudly.

* * *

He woke with a start as his subconscious felt his laptop begin to slip from his thighs. His heart beat loudly in his ears and he was panting like he'd just run a marathon. Rick clutched the computer tightly as he guided it onto the desk before he lifted his feet away and onto the floor, a feeling of dizziness overwhelming him.

He put his head down between his legs and tried to breathe deeply to calm himself. "This can't go on," he muttered to himself. "I'm in love with a figment of my imagination. This is ridiculous." He repeated it over and over, as if the repetition would make it null and void, would make him forget.

He could never forget.

Alexis' voice drifted through the loft, getting a little louder with each word, "Dad? I'm home... where are you?"

"In here, sweetie," he called, without moving.

"Oh my gosh, Dad are you okay?" Alexis rushed over to him and put her hand on his back.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just dozed off while writing and when I woke up my laptop was slipping off my legs and I got a dizzy spell."

"Why don't you go get into bed, and I'll bring you some water." He hummed in response, but didn't move. "Dad? Come on."

After slowly extricating himself from his chair, he let his daughter help him into his room where he sat on the edge of the bed and stared into space until she returned with a glass of water. He had a few sips before she took it away from him and put it on his bedside table before she gently pushed his shoulder to make him lie down. He willingly put his feet up onto the mattress and she pulled the duvet up to his chin.

"Get some rest, Dad," she smiled at him, kissing his cheek gently. "And when you wake up, you can shave the rest of your beard off."

* * *

He's missed the main event, but somehow he can't bring himself to mind too much. Her body is plastered to his, draped over his torso like a blanket of satiated heat. He hears her contented sigh, feels it too as her breath tickles the hair on his chest.

"Told you, heightened sensations."

"You did mention that, yes."

"But it still has to go. Nothing worse than stubble rash on your boobs."

He startles himself with his laugh, louder than he expected it to be. "Well, you're the expert." She humphs and he can feel the pouting frown on her forehead, even as he starts to rub small circles across the sweat pooling in the dimples of her lower back. "Come on, give me a hand with this beard." He gathers her up from above him and shifts them both out of the bed, pulling her into the bathroom by the tips of her fingers.

She runs the tap, filling the sink with scalding hot water while he gets the foam can and squirts a big blob into his palm. He works the foam into his stubble, getting it right down to the skin and rinses the excess from his hands. She puts his razor into the sink to warm up and turns him away from the mirror, makes him lean against the edge of the marble that encases the basin, laughing at his hiss of protest when his ass comes into contact with the cold stone.

"Hold still," she orders, as she brandishes the razor. He closes his eyes, trusting her completely in a way that would take him by surprise if he hadn't been expecting something like this to happen. He breathes deeply and tilts his head as directed by her knowing fingers until she is satisfied with her handiwork. "You can open your eyes now."

* * *

He could swear he saw her in front of him when he opened his eyes but it was the elephant painting by the bathroom door that brought him back to reality.


End file.
